Presubmission Review Program

• Connects Radow College faculty with a curated pool of 8–12 expert reviewers — including faculty from peer institutions, disciplinary grant consultants, and editorial professionals — for substantive written feedback on grant applications and manuscripts prior to submission.
• Reviewers are compensated directly for their expert feedback; faculty do not receive award funds themselves.
• Reviewer pool membership is curated and approved in advance by the Radow College Associate Dean of Research, with all reviewer agreements documented in writing before any review is assigned.
• Provides expert quality-control review immediately prior to submission.

The Presubmission Review Program provides Radow College faculty access to substantive, expert, written feedback on grant applications and manuscripts before they are submitted externally in order to improve competitiveness. The program builds and maintains a curated pool of 8–12 expert reviewers, drawn from peer-institution faculty, disciplinary grant consultants, and editorial professionals, each approved in advance by the Radow College Associate Dean of Research. Reviewers are compensated per review, ensuring the program can reliably attract genuine subject-matter and grantsmanship expertise. By pairing this presubmission review layer with the college’s other research-advancement and grant-development awards, Radow College aims to raise the overall quality and competitiveness of faculty submissions across the full pipeline — from seed-stage research through final submission.

Faculty Requesting a Presubmission Review :

• Full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member in Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences, in good standing.
• Must have a substantially complete draft grant application or manuscript ready for expert feedback — not an early concept or outline.
• Must identify the specific external target (e.g., a named funding agency/mechanism, or target journal/press) so an appropriately matched reviewer can be assigned.
• Faculty may request one presubmission review per submission; a second review of the same document requires approval from the Radow College Associate Dean of Research.

Reviewer Pool Membership :

• Reviewer pool consists of 8–12 approved experts, including faculty from peer institutions, disciplinary grant consultants, and editorial professionals.
• Candidates can be nominated by Radow College faculty, the Associate Dean of Research, or through self-nomination, and they must demonstrate relevant subject-matter expertise, prior grant review or editorial experience, and no significant conflict of interest with likely applicants.
• All reviewer pool members must be formally approved by the Radow College Associate Dean of Research prior to being assigned any review.
• Reviewer agreements, including compensation terms and confidentiality expectations, must be documented in writing before a reviewer is assigned to any submission.

Requesting a Presubmission Review :

1. Request Submission: Faculty member submits a request via the college’s designated system (e.g., InfoReady or email to the Radow College Associate Dean of Research), including the draft document, target sponsor/journal, and submission deadline.
2. Reviewer Matching: The Associate Dean of Research matches the request to an approved reviewer with relevant subject-matter or grantsmanship expertise, accounting for conflicts of interest.
3. Reviewer Agreement: A written reviewer agreement — outlining compensation amount, deliverable, and turnaround time — must be finalized before the review begins.
4. Review & Feedback: The reviewer will provide substantive written feedback within the agreed turnaround window (recommended: 2–3 weeks).
5. Delivery & Compensation: Feedback is delivered to the faculty member; the reviewer is compensated in accordance with the documented agreement upon completion.

Joining the Reviewer Pool :

1. Nomination: A candidate is nominated by a Radow faculty member, the Associate Dean of Research, or through self-nomination, with a CV and a brief statement of relevant expertise.
2. Review & Approval: The Associate Dean of Research reviews the nomination against the Evaluation Rubric below and approves or declines pool membership.
3. Agreement & Onboarding: Approved reviewers sign a standard reviewer agreement covering compensation structure, confidentiality, and expectations before receiving their first assignment.

Because this program is a service and matching mechanism rather than a competitive faculty award, evaluation applies at two distinct points. First, the Associate Dean of Research evaluates reviewer pool nominations against the criteria below to ensure the pool maintains high-quality, appropriately diverse expertise. Second, each faculty review request is evaluated only for completeness and readiness — a substantially complete draft, an identified external target, and a reasonable timeline — rather than being competitively scored.

The rubric below governs approval of candidates to the reviewer pool, since faculty review requests are not competitively scored (see Evaluation above).

All six criteria must be satisfied for reviewer pool approval. This is a pass/fail administrative checklist rather than a weighted, competitive score, reflecting the program’s role as a curated expert-matching service.

Examples of Allowable Expenses :

• Reviewer compensation for substantive written feedback on a grant application or manuscript.

Not Allowable :

• Compensation for informal, verbal-only feedback without a substantive written product.
• Compensation to reviewers who are not formally approved and documented in the reviewer pool prior to the review.
• Reviews of early-stage concepts, outlines, or documents that are not substantially complete drafts — these are better served by internal mentorship or the Hanover Grant Academy.
• Compensation for a second review of the same document without prior approval from the Associate Dean of Research.
• Reviewer compensation for reviewing a document from their own close collaborators where a conflict of interest exists.

All reviewer compensation must be disbursed within the award period and is subject to standard institutional budget and procurement policies.

• Primary Deliverable: Substantive written feedback from the assigned reviewer, addressing the competitiveness, clarity, and quality of the draft grant application or manuscript, delivered within the agreed turnaround window.
• Faculty Responsibility: Faculty who receive a presubmission review are expected to meaningfully consider the feedback prior to submission; a brief note on how feedback was incorporated (or why not) may be requested for program evaluation purposes.
• Reviewer Responsibility: Reviewers are expected to honor the confidentiality of the reviewed material and deliver feedback within the documented turnaround window.
• Acknowledgment: Use of the Presubmission Review Program need not be acknowledged in the resulting submission, given the confidential nature of the feedback.
• Non-Delivery: Reviewers who do not deliver feedback within the agreed window without valid cause may be removed from the reviewer pool for future assignments.
• Strategic Reporting: Aggregate outcomes — number of reviews completed, reviewer pool composition, faculty-reported usefulness, and, where possible, submission or award outcomes — will be reported by the Radow College Associate Dean of Research to demonstrate the program’s contribution to submission quality.