What to Do When a Grant Is Declined

After a grant is declined, request whatever feedback the funder offers, read the reviewer comments for criticisms that repeat rather than ones that stand alone, decide deliberately whether to resubmit, and reuse the material elsewhere. A decline reports how one panel scored one submission.

Current figures — verified 2026-08-11

Item	Value	Source
NIH-wide success rate, new versus resubmitted R01 applications	13.1% new; 33.5% resubmission (FY2015)	NIH Open Mike
A1 award rate when the original application was not discussed	12% to 22%	NIH Open Mike
Eventual award rate by initial overall impact score	80–90% at scores of 10–30; under 10% if not discussed	NIH Open Mike
Amended applications receiving a better percentile	over 75% of 15,009 pairs, FY2014–FY2016	NIH Open Mike
Declined applicants who requested feedback and received it	47%, in one foundation’s survey	St. David’s Foundation / CEP
Letters of inquiry declined per proposal invited	75 to 100, from roughly 1,400 received	Tinker Foundation

These figures change. Verify against the linked source before relying on them. Report an outdated figure

Key takeaways

• A decline is one panel’s measurement, not a verdict on the work.
• Weight a criticism by how many reviewers raised it.
• Federal resubmission carries better odds than a brand-new application.
• Change the proposal; do not simply defend the original.
• Bank the research, the budget, and the narrative for the next funder.

What does a grant decline actually tell you?

A grant decline tells you that a specific panel, on a specific day, ranked your submission below the funding line. Within writing the proposal, the decline is the most common outcome by a wide margin, and a substantial share of declines carry no diagnostic information about the proposal at all.

The evidence for that last claim is direct. A retrospective analysis of one Australian national funding round found that 59 percent of 620 funded grants were sometimes not funded once random variation in panel members’ scores was modeled, with 29 percent of all proposals falling into a band where the outcome depended on who scored them (Graves, Barnett & Clarke, BMJ 343:d4797, 2011). A replication of the full NIH review process found no reliable agreement among reviewers evaluating the same strong applications (Pier et al., PNAS 115(12), 2018).

Funders say the same thing in their own words. The most common reason one private foundation declines letters of inquiry is that “other projects offered a stronger fit and/or potential for impact” — a competitiveness outcome, not a quality judgment (Tinker Foundation, Why Was My Letter of Inquiry Declined?).

The emotional part is real and short. The operational part is longer: a decline is an input to the next decision, and the only wasted decline is the one nobody reads. Treat it the way a grant pipeline treats any other outcome — as a logged event with a follow-up action attached.

What feedback exists after a grant is declined?

Feedback after a grant decline ranges from a full written critique to nothing at all, and the difference tracks the funder type. Federal agencies generally produce written review documents; most private funders do not.

At the National Institutes of Health, the Scientific Review Officer prepares a summary statement containing “a resume of the discussion (if discussed), the reviewers’ critiques, the priority score, and budget and administrative notes,” released between roughly 30 days after the review meeting and 30 days before the advisory council meeting (NINDS, Scoring and Summary Statements). Applications judged less competitive are not discussed and receive criterion scores without an overall impact score, which is itself informative.

At the National Science Foundation, a declined principal investigator “receives verbatim but unattributed copies of any ad hoc reviews and the panel summary (if applicable), a description of how the proposal was reviewed, and… an explanation of the basis for the declination,” and may request additional information from the program officer or division director (NSF PAPPG, Chapter IV).

Private foundations mostly provide no substantive feedback, and the ones that offer it often fail to deliver. In a survey of declined applicants at one health foundation, fewer than half of those who requested feedback received it, and the honesty with which decline reasons were shared scored lowest of any measure in the survey (see current figures above; St. David’s Foundation, 2025 Declined Grant Applicant Survey). Ask anyway, ask within a month or two while the reviewer’s memory of your file is intact, and ask a narrow question rather than “why were we declined.”

How do you read reviewer comments on a declined grant?

Read reviewer comments on a declined grant by sorting them into categories before responding to any of them. The sorting step is what separates a fixable presentation problem from a fatal design problem, and skipping it produces resubmissions that polish the wrong things.

Start with the panel-level text where one exists. A resume of the discussion or a panel summary records what the group converged on, which is a stronger signal than any individual critique, because the individual critique reflects one reader and the panel text reflects what survived argument. Panel discussion changes a proposal’s funding status for only about 10 to 13 percent of proposals, so what the panel wrote down is usually what the panel believed going in (Gallo et al., Research Integrity and Peer Review 5:7, 2020).

The triage table below classifies reviewer comments by the signal each carries and the action each warrants.

Comment type	What it signals	Action
Raised by two or more reviewers	Score-driving concern	Change the design or the evidence, then say so
Raised by one reviewer only	Often idiosyncratic	Address briefly; do not restructure around it
Factual misreading of your text	Your writing failed, not the reviewer	Rewrite the passage; do not argue the point
Fundamental design objection	Fatal unless the design changes	Change the approach or decline to resubmit
Fit, scope, or portfolio comment	Not a quality judgment	Change funders rather than the proposal

Two categories deserve extra care. A comment that misreads your proposal is a writing defect in disguise; a reviewer who did not understand something is evidence that the passage was unclear, since assigned reviewers are the readers who spend the most time with the document and still summarize it to a panel that did not — the dynamic described in writing for the reviewer. And a comment about scope or programmatic fit is not fixable by better writing at all; it is a signal to reconsider the target, which belongs in the next go/no-go decision.

Federal agencies also warn against over-reading the document you receive. A summary statement “is not an exhaustive critique of your proposal,” so it “may not list all concerns reviewers had” (NIAID, Revise and Resubmit an Application).

Should you resubmit a declined grant application?

Resubmit a declined grant application when the funder permits it, the criticisms are addressable, and the initial score suggests the panel was engaged. Federal data show a strong gradient: applications scoring near the top of the range are eventually funded at high rates, while applications never discussed at review are rarely funded even after revision (see current figures above; NIH Open Mike, Resubmissions Revisited).

Resubmission also outperforms starting over. A matched-cohort study of first-time NIH R01 applicants, matching on applicant and application characteristics, found that those who resubmitted their original unfunded application had odds of obtaining any R01 funding within three and five years roughly two to four times higher than comparable applicants who submitted new applications instead (Doyle, Baiocchi & Kiernan, PLOS ONE 16(11), 2021). The authors nonetheless caution against concluding that every application should be resubmitted, because applicants self-select into resubmission based on their score.

Three conditions argue against resubmitting. The design objection is structural and you do not intend to change the design. The announcement has expired, the program no longer participates, or eligibility has changed. Or the comments describe a fit problem rather than a quality problem, in which case a different funder is the cheaper path — the reasoning covered in how funders decide who gets money.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases states the timing rule bluntly: “Do not resubmit until you can send in the strongest possible application that effectively addresses all the reviewers’ comments” (NIAID). A rushed resubmission spends the single permitted attempt.

How does grant resubmission work where it is allowed?

Grant resubmission rules are funder-specific and strictly enforced. At the National Institutes of Health, only a single resubmission of a given application is accepted, it must be submitted within 37 months of the application it follows, and the summary statement from the prior review must be in hand first (NIH, Resubmission Applications). After an unsuccessful resubmission, the idea may be submitted again as a new application.

Marking changes is now prohibited at NIH rather than expected. Effective guidance states that “the use of markups such as bracketing, indenting, highlighting, bolding, italicizing, underlining, margin lines, change in typography, font, or font color, or any other type of markup should not be used to identify changes in Resubmission applications,” and that changes “should only be outlined in the Introduction attachment” (NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-24-061). Other funders still expect change bars, so the rule is checked per announcement rather than assumed.

The National Science Foundation takes a different approach. A declined NSF proposal may be resubmitted, but the Foundation “reserves the right to return without review a proposal that is substantially the same as one that was previously reviewed and declined,” and lists prior declination without substantial revision among its grounds for return without review (NSF PAPPG, Chapter IV).

Appeals exist at NSF and are narrower than applicants expect. Reconsideration is available to a proposer who is “not satisfied that the proposal was fairly handled and reasonably reviewed,” and its purpose is “to ensure that NSF’s review has been fair and reasonable, both substantively and procedurally”; a further request may go to the Deputy Director, whose “decision… is final” (NSF PAPPG, Chapter IV). Requests arguing that reviewers were wrong about the science do not succeed. Requests documenting a procedural defect occasionally do.

Talk to the program officer before drafting anything. The contact appears on the summary statement or declination notice, and a fifteen-minute call establishes whether the program still wants the work — information no written critique contains.

How do you write a response to reviewers?

Write the response to reviewers as a prioritized, point-by-point document that concedes where the criticism is correct, disagrees with evidence where it is not, and states what changed in the application itself. At NIH the document is called the Introduction, it must summarize substantial additions, deletions, and changes, and it is capped at one page for most applications (NIH, Resubmission Applications).

A one-page budget against a critique that may run to dozens of points forces ruthless ordering. Address score-driving criticisms first, then criticisms echoed by multiple reviewers, then minor points if space remains. Paraphrasing each concern as a short topic heading costs fewer words than quoting it.

Five rules govern the register of the document.

• Respond to every substantive point, even briefly. Silence on a criticism reads as an inability to answer it.
• Concede plainly where the reviewer is right. A conceded point followed by the fix is the shortest path to a better score.
• Disagree respectfully and pay for it with evidence. Disagreement is permitted; unsupported disagreement is not persuasive to a reader who may not be the original reviewer.
• Explain what changed and why, not only what changed. The reason is what allows a new reviewer to evaluate the change.
• Fix it in the body, not only in the response. A change described in the response and absent from the narrative is not a change.

Change the proposal rather than defending it. NIAID notes that new reviewers may see the application, that “reviewers are not wedded to their critiques,” and that “many people get funded after revising” (NIAID, Revise and Resubmit an Application). Writing the response as a rebuttal brief rather than a change log is the most common way a resubmission loses the advantage the data says it should have.

How do you salvage the work from a declined grant?

Salvage a declined grant by separating the reusable assets from the funder-specific packaging, then filing them where the next application can find them. A federal narrative represents dozens of hours of research, most of which is not specific to the funder that declined it.

Six assets survive a decline intact.

• The need statement and its data. Public data sources, citations, and the gap analysis carry forward to any funder working the same problem.
• The project design. Activities, staffing model, timeline, and logic model change only if a reviewer identified a design flaw.
• The budget and its assumptions. Rates, fringe calculations, and cost bases are reusable, subject to each funder’s allowable-cost rules.
• Letters of commitment and partner agreements. Refresh the dates; the relationships are the expensive part.
• The organizational capacity section. Track record, outcomes data, and staff qualifications become standing boilerplate.
• The reviewer comments themselves. Comments on a declined proposal are free editing from a subject-matter expert who read carefully.

Update the boilerplate library while the material is fresh rather than at the next deadline. A capacity section rewritten in response to a reviewer’s criticism is better than the original and should replace it in the library, not sit in an archived folder named after the competition that declined it.

Log the decline with its reasons in the pipeline record. Patterns are invisible one application at a time and obvious across a year — an organization that loses repeatedly on evaluation design has a different problem from one that loses repeatedly on organizational capacity, and only the log distinguishes them.

What goes wrong after a grant is declined?

Six failure patterns follow a grant decline, and each converts recoverable effort into sunk cost. None involve writing quality; all involve what the organization does in the weeks after the notice arrives.

• Never asking for feedback. Most declined applicants never contact the funder, and funders report that the request is welcome when it arrives soon after the decision.
• Resubmitting without changing anything substantive. NSF returns without review proposals previously declined and not substantially revised, and a defended proposal is not a revised one.
• Over-fitting to one reviewer. A single idiosyncratic objection drives a redesign that the panel never asked for.
• Reading the score as a verdict. Reviewer agreement on strong proposals is close to zero, so one number is a noisy estimate rather than a measurement of the work.
• Missing the deadline for feedback or reconsideration. Reconsideration windows are short and strictly enforced, and a late request is simply not considered.
• Archiving instead of harvesting. The narrative, budget, and letters are filed under the losing competition and rebuilt from scratch for the next one.

A seventh pattern shows up on the funder side and is worth planning around. Foundations increasingly decline without individualized feedback because of application volume — one foundation states directly that its letter-of-inquiry volume has risen past the point where it can provide individual responses, and publishes a list of common decline reasons instead (see current figures above; Tinker Foundation). Where no feedback will arrive, the diagnostic work has to happen internally, using the published decline reasons and a candid read of the compliance matrix against what was actually submitted.

Frequently asked questions

How do you ask a funder for feedback after a rejection?

Email the program contact named in the decline notice within a month or two, state that you plan to apply again, and ask one or two specific questions rather than requesting a general critique. Federal program officers can discuss the review; foundation staff often cannot, and volume is usually the reason.

Can you appeal a grant decision?

Most agencies have no merit appeal. NSF is the significant exception, offering reconsideration aimed at whether the review was fair and reasonable substantively and procedurally, with a final decision available from the Deputy Director. Appeals arguing that reviewers were scientifically wrong do not succeed; documented procedural defects sometimes do.

How many times can you resubmit a grant application?

At NIH, once per application, within 37 months of the application it follows; after an unsuccessful resubmission the idea may be submitted as a new application. NSF permits resubmission after substantial revision and may return an unrevised proposal without review. Private funders vary and often state a waiting period.

Does resubmitting hurt your chances with the same panel?

Resubmitting does not carry a penalty, and applications are reviewed on their whole contents rather than on the changes. NIH now prohibits marking changes in the application body precisely so that reviewers evaluate the entire document. New reviewers may join the panel and may raise concerns the first review did not.

What if the reviewers misunderstood the proposal?

A misunderstanding is a writing problem to fix rather than an error to argue. Rewrite the passage that produced it, then note the clarification in the response document. Reviewers read many applications under time pressure, so a passage that one careful reader misread will likely be misread again.

Should you tell your board a decline was bad luck?

Report what the record supports. Where reviewer comments identify specific weaknesses, name them and the fix. Where the decline reflects competition or portfolio fit, say so and cite the funder’s own stated reasons. Attributing every decline to luck, and every decline to failure, are equally uninformative.

Related topics

• Writing the Proposal — the hub covering each section of a proposal and what it must prove
• The Anatomy of a Grant Proposal
• The Letter of Inquiry
• Grant Timing and the Funding Calendar
• Research Grants at NIH and NSF

Sources

1. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Scoring and Summary Statements. https://www.ninds.nih.gov/funding/after-you-submit/understanding-review-process/scoring-and-summary-statements (accessed 2026-08-11)
2. National Institutes of Health, Resubmission Applications. https://grants.nih.gov/grants-process/submit/submission-policies/resubmission-applications (accessed 2026-08-11)
3. National Institutes of Health, Guide Notice NOT-OD-24-061, NIH Guidance on Marking Changes in Resubmission Applications, February 13, 2024. https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-24-061.html (accessed 2026-08-11)
4. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Revise and Resubmit an Application. https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/revise-resubmit-application (accessed 2026-08-11)
5. Michael Lauer, “Are You On the Fence About Whether to Resubmit?”, NIH Extramural Nexus, October 28, 2016. https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2016/10/28/are-you-on-the-fence-about-whether-to-resubmit/ (accessed 2026-08-11)
6. Michael Lauer, “Resubmissions Revisited: Funded Resubmission Applications and Their Initial Peer Review Scores,” NIH Extramural Nexus, February 17, 2017. https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2017/02/17/resubmissions-revisited-funded-resubmission-applications-and-their-initial-peer-review-scores/ (accessed 2026-08-11)
7. Michael Lauer, “Outcomes of Amended (‘A1’) Applications,” NIH Extramural Nexus, March 23, 2017. https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2017/03/23/outcomes-of-amended-a1-applications/ (accessed 2026-08-11)
8. Joanna M. Doyle, Michael T. Baiocchi and Michaela Kiernan, “Downstream funding success of early career researchers for resubmitted versus new applications: A matched cohort,” PLOS ONE 16(11):e0257559, November 18, 2021. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0257559 (accessed 2026-08-11)
9. U.S. National Science Foundation, Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (NSF 24-1), Chapter IV: Non-Award Decisions and Transactions. https://www.nsf.gov/policies/pappg/24-1/ch-4-non-award-decisions-transactions (accessed 2026-08-11)
10. Elizabeth L. Pier et al., “Low agreement among reviewers evaluating the same NIH grant applications,” PNAS 115(12):2952–2957, March 5, 2018. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1714379115 (accessed 2026-08-11)
11. Nicholas Graves, Adrian G. Barnett and Philip Clarke, “Funding grant proposals for scientific research: retrospective analysis of scores by members of grant review panel,” BMJ 343:d4797, September 27, 2011. https://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d4797 (accessed 2026-08-11)
12. Stephen A. Gallo et al., “Grant reviewer perceptions of the quality, effectiveness, and influence of panel discussion,” Research Integrity and Peer Review 5:7, May 15, 2020. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41073-020-00093-0 (accessed 2026-08-11)
13. Tinker Foundation, “Why Was My Letter of Inquiry Declined?”, February 12, 2025. https://tinker.org/why-was-my-letter-of-inquiry-declined/ (accessed 2026-08-11)
14. St. David’s Foundation, “Listening, Learning, and Growing: Insights from Our 2025 Declined Grant Applicant Survey,” March 3, 2026. https://stdavidsfoundation.org/research-and-insights/2025-declined-grant-applicant-survey/ (accessed 2026-08-11)