Guidelines for Community‐Based Partners for Reviewing Research Grant Applications: Lessons from the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR) Community Engagement Research Core (CERC)

One of most important mandates of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Clinical and Translational Science Award’s (CTSA) awards is to accelerate the dissemination of scientific discoveries so that the public benefits from health related research. Carrying out that mandate requires equitable and bi-directional research partnerships with those who will use these discoveries to benefit health. The mission of the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research’s (MICHR) Community Engagement & Research Core is to increase community decision-making and action for health promotion, disease prevention, and treatment by involving the community in all phases of clinical research. Some of the community partners serving on MICHR’s Community Engagement Coordinating Council (CECC) have expressed concern about reviewing university/community partner research projects. They found the scientific nature of proposals somewhat challenging. These guidelines are intended to help community partners bring to bear their unique expertise and experience in the evaluation of proposed research studies that include community partners as co-principle investigators. This paper provides an approach for ensuring the community’s voice plays an important role in reviewing pilot project proposals for community-engaged research.