Subject to § 3401.7, the Director will adopt procedures for the conduct of peer reviews and the formulation of recommendations under § 3401.16.

Peer review group members will be selected based upon their training or experience in relevant scientific or technical fields, taking into account the following factors:

(a) The level of formal scientific or technical education by the individual;

(b) The extent to which the individual has engaged in relevant research, the capacities in which the individual has done so (e.g., principal investigator, assistant), and the quality of such research;

(c) Professional recognition as reflected by awards and other honors received from scientific and professional organizations outside of the Department;

(d) The need of the group to include within its membership experts from various areas of specialization within relevant scientific or technical fields;

(e) The need of the group to include within its membership experts from a variety of organizational types (e.g., universities, industry, private consultant(s)) and geographic locations; and

(f) The need of the group to maintain a balanced membership, e.g., minority and female representation and an equitable age distribution.

Members of peer review groups covered by this part are subject to relevant provisions contained in Title 18 of the United States Code relating to criminal activity, Department regulations governing employee responsibilities and conduct (part 0 of this title), and Executive Order 11222 (3 CFR, 1964-1965 Comp., p. 306), as amended. Administration of the peer review group must be in accordance with the Department's conflict of interest policy, 2 CFR 400.2.

Information regarding the peer review process will be made available to the extent permitted under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552), the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. 552a.), and implementing Departmental regulations (part 1 of this title).

(a) All research Applications for Funding will be acknowledged. Prior to technical examination, a preliminary review will be made for responsiveness to the request for proposals (e.g., relationship of application to research program area). Proposals that do not fall within the guidelines as stated in the annual request for proposals will be eliminated from competition and will be returned to the applicant. Proposals whose budgets exceed the maximum allowable amount for a particular program area as announced in the request for proposals may be considered as lying outside the guidelines.

(b) All applications will be reviewed carefully by the Director , qualified officers or employees of the Department, the respective merit review panel, and ad hoc reviewers, as required. Written comments will be solicited from ad hoc reviewers, when required, and individual written comments and in-depth discussions will be provided by peer review group members prior to recommending applications for funding. Applications will be ranked and support levels recommended within the limitation of total available funding for each research program area as announced in the applicable request for proposals.

(c) Except to the extent otherwise provided by law, such recommendations are advisory only and are not binding on program officers or on the awarding official.

(a) Federally funded research supported under these provisions shall be designed to, among other things, accomplish one or more of the following purposes:

(1) Improve management of rangelands as an integrated system and/or watershed;

(2) Remedy unstable or unsatisfactory rangeland conditions;

(3) Increase revegetation and/or rehabilitation of rangelands;

(4) Examine the health of rangelands; and

(5) Define economic parameters associated with rangelands.

(b) In carrying out its review under § 3401.16, the peer review panel will use the following form upon which the evaluation criteria to be used are enumerated, unless, pursuant to § 3401.7(a), different evaluation criteria are specified in the annual solicitation of proposals for a particular program:

(c) Proposals satisfactorily meeting the guidelines will be evaluated and scored by the peer review panel for each criterion utilizing a scale of 1 through 10. A score of one (1) will be considered low and a score of ten (10) will be considered high for each selection criterion. A weighted factor is used for each criterion.