The SAEM Grants Committee reviews all grant submissions to the SAEM Foundation. Any SAEM member can sign up to serve as a Grants Committee member. Committee members are selected by the SAEM President-Elect for the next year based on experience level, grant categories, and need for reviewers in any particular year.

Conflict of Interest Policy

The SAEM Grants Committee is dedicated to the peer review of submitted grant applications in a fair, unbiased manner free from conflicts of interest. In an attempt to avoid any real or potential conflict of interest, certain individuals will be ineligible to receive an award, as follows:

• Principal Investigator: Any individual submitting a grant as principal investigator and holding any of the following positions within SAEM at the time of grant review will be deemed ineligible for the award: SAEM Grants Committee Chair, SAEM Board of Directors members, and SAEMF Board of Trustees members
  
  
• Mentor, Co-Investigator, Collaborator, Consultant or other role described in the grant application: Any individual participating in a grant application in the capacity of mentor, co-investigator, collaborator, consultant or any other role described in the grant application and holding any of the following positions within SAEM at the time of grant review will be deemed ineligible for the award: SAEM Grants Committee Chair. However, it will be permissible for the SAEM Grants Committee Chair to provide a letter of support for an application provided that there is no direct involvement in the project (e.g. as Department/Division Chair, Residency Director, Research Director).

SAEM Grants Committee Reviewer Guidelines

Members of the SAEM Grants Committee will be held to the following review guidelines:

• Members of the SAEM Grants Committee must not be present in the room during review of all applications in a category within which they are PI, primary mentor or co-investigator on an application.
  
• Members of the SAEM Grants Committee cannot review or vote on an application submitted by investigators from applicants from within their institution and will not be present in the review session during these reviews. They can, however, review other applications within the submitted category.
  
• Members of the SAEM Grants Committee should declare verbally any potential conflict of interest with any application other than those outlined above. The member should also verbalize if they do or do not believe that cannot objectively evaluate the application. If objectivity is in question, the member will not vote on that application.
  
• Members of the SAEM Grants Committee do not have to recuse themselves from review of grant applications from past collaborators, consultants, mentors, mentees or trainees, unless they believe that they cannot objectively review the application. The member should inform the SAEM Grants Committee chair and (when applicable) the sub-committee chair if they do or do not believe that cannot objectively evaluate the application.