Micheal Oward talks to michael lower, deputy director of extra mural research at the national institutes of health in bethesda. His office hands out around 30 billion dollars a year in research grants to scientists across the united states. Every year his office gets 80 thousand grant applications from around the country. They only have money to fund about 20 % of those, so they hold the equivalent of an election. The reviewers vote for the ones they like and throw out the rest. This is then followed by an open discussion. After the discussion has been completed, there is then a a scoring. A score of 90 would represent the absolute worst proposal. Those scores are predictions about how good a