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The "Assignment Request Form" is an optional attachment, but is now the ONLY way to request a specific study section*

The Assignment Request Form may be used to communicate specific application assignment and review requests to the Division of Receipt and Referral and to Scientific Review Officers (SROs). This information will not be part of your assembled application, and it will neither be made available to program staff nor provided to reviewers.

*This information was previously collected in the Cover Letter Attachment, but must now be provided in the Assignment Request Form.

If you're unsure which study section is appropriate, please use the Assisted Referral Tool (ART) for suggestions.

While NIH will consider all assignment requests, please note that it is not always possible to assign an application to a preferred study section. 

NIH Guidance:

• NIH Application Guide - Assignment Request Form
• List of Institutes/Centers
• List of Study Sections
• List of Integrated Review Groups
• NIH Assisted Referral Tool (ART) - ART

Content:

Assisted Referral Tool:

The Assisted Referral Tool (ART) was developed by the NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR) to recommend potentially appropriate study section. You enter the title and abstract of your submission, it will analyze the text and suggest a study section based on keywords.

Assignment Request form:

Awarding Component Assignment Request (optional)

• NIH staff will consider all assignment preferences, although in some cases, the awarding component is pre-determined and assignment preferences cannot be accommodated.
• Use the short abbreviation (e.g., NCI for the National Cancer Institute, or NEI for the National Eye Institute).
• You do not need to make entries in all six boxes.

Assign to Awarding Component: 
You may enter up to three preferences for primary assignment in the boxes in the "Assign to Awarding Component" row.

Do Not Assign to Awarding Component: 
You may enter up to three preferences of NIH IC to which you do not want your application assigned.

Study Section Assignment Request (optional)

• Use the short abbreviation of the SRG/SEP you would prefer. For example, enter "CAMP" for the Cancer Molecular Pathobiology study section or enter text formatted like "ZRG1 HDM-R (11) B" for an SBIR/STTR panel.
• Be careful to accurately capture all formatting (e.g., spaces, hyphens) when you type in the request. All parts of the short abbreviation are important for accuracy.
• You do not need to make an entry in all six boxes.

Assign to Study Section: 
You may enter up to three preferences for SRGs/SEPs (use one box per individual SRG/SEP preference request.)

Do Not Assign to Study Section: 
You may enter up to three preferences for SRGs/SEPs to which you do not want your application assigned.

List individuals who should not review your application and why (optional)

• You may list specific individuals, if any, who should not review your application and why they should not review your application.
• Provide sufficient information (e.g., name, organizational affiliation) so that the SRO can correctly identify the individual.
• Be prepared to provide additional information if needed.
• Your answer can have a maximum of 1000 characters.

Identify scientific areas of expertise needed to review your application (optional)

• You may list up to five general or specific types of expertise needed for the review of your application.
• Limit your answers to areas of expertise - do not enter names of individuals you would like to review your application.
• Each field can have a maximum of 40 characters.

Examples and Templates:

• Download the Assignment Request Form