{"entity":{"id":"idea-fund-patient-burden-review-criterion","kind":"idea","name":"A formal patient-burden score in grant peer review","aka":[],"tldr":"Add a scored criterion to grant review that asks how much suffering the proposal addresses and how soon, judged partly by patients, and give it real weight.","summary":"Peer review currently scores significance, innovation and approach, which reward novelty and technical elegance. A burden criterion (deaths, DALYs and unmet need in the target population, plausible time to patient impact) is scored separately by a panel that includes trained patient reviewers and carries 20% of the total. The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the US Department of Defense cancer programmes already include consumer reviewers; this makes burden an explicit, weighted term.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"CDMRP (US DoD medical research programmes)","url":"https://cdmrp.health.mil/"}],"tags":[],"related":["idea-fund-burden-weighted-portfolio","idea-fund-portable-patient-consent"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-funding-allocation","b-patient-voice"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"Introducing a 20% burden criterion shifts the funded portfolio towards high-burden, near-term questions within two cycles without lowering the mean scientific quality score of funded awards.","rationale":"Where consumer reviewers sit on panels (DoD CDMRP, PCORI) funded portfolios differ measurably from science-only panels, and investigators report designing more patient-relevant studies. Explicit weights are needed because informal patient input is discounted when it conflicts with scientific enthusiasm.","test":"Score one review round twice, with and without the burden criterion, and compare the two hypothetical funded sets on burden alignment and scientific score; then run it live for a cycle.","maturity":"speculative","actor":"policy","cost":"small","horizonYears":2},"route":"/ideas/idea-fund-patient-burden-review-criterion/","neighbours":{"idea":[{"id":"idea-fund-burden-weighted-portfolio","kind":"idea","name":"Burden-weighted portfolio targets for every major cancer funder","route":"/ideas/idea-fund-burden-weighted-portfolio/"},{"id":"idea-fund-portable-patient-consent","kind":"idea","name":"Patient-held portable consent for reusing samples and data across studies","route":"/ideas/idea-fund-portable-patient-consent/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-funding-allocation","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Funding follows fashion, not burden","route":"/bottlenecks/b-funding-allocation/"},{"id":"b-patient-voice","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Patients lack understanding, navigation and agency","route":"/bottlenecks/b-patient-voice/"}]}}