How to Respond to Reviewer Critiques in a Resubmission

When resubmitting an SBIR/STTR proposal, addressing reviewer critiques effectively is crucial for improving your chances of success. The most common mistake is ignoring the feedback, which almost always will lead to another rejection.

Here's a comprehensive guide on how to respond to reviewer comments and strengthen your resubmission.

Understanding the Importance of Reviewer Comments

Reviewer feedback is invaluable for several reasons:

  • It provides insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your proposal
  • It highlights areas that need improvement or clarification
  • It offers an opportunity to strengthen your application significantly

General Principles for Responding to Critiques

  1. Be respectful and professional: Even if you disagree with a comment, maintain a polite and appreciative tone.
  2. Address every critique: Respond to each comment, even if it's just to acknowledge a positive remark.
  3. Be concise but thorough: Provide complete responses without unnecessary verbosity.
  4. Show, don't just tell: Where possible, demonstrate how you've addressed issues rather than simply stating that you have.
  5. Use the critique as an opportunity: View each comment as a chance to improve your proposal, not as a criticism to defend against.

Step-by-Step Guide to Responding to Critiques

1. Organize the Critiques

  • Create a document listing all reviewer comments
  • Group similar comments together
  • Prioritize critiques based on their importance and potential impact

2. Analyze Each Critique

  • Understand the core issue behind each comment
  • Determine if the critique results from a misunderstanding or a genuine weakness in your proposal

3. Plan Your Response

For each critique, decide on an appropriate action:

  • Revise the proposal to address the issue
  • Provide additional explanation or clarification
  • Respectfully disagree with evidence to support your stance

4. Draft Your Responses

For each critique:

  • Restate the reviewer's comment
  • Provide your response, including:
  • How you've addressed the issue in your revised proposal
  • Where in the proposal the changes can be found
  • Any additional explanation or justification needed

5. Revise Your Proposal

  • Make all necessary changes to your proposal based on your planned responses
  • Ensure consistency between your responses and the revised proposal

6. Format Your Response Document

  • Follow any agency-specific guidelines for formatting
  • Typically, use a table or list format with reviewer comments in one column and your responses in another
  • Consider using a system (e.g., color coding) to indicate major vs. minor changes

Examples of Effective Responses

Example 1: Addressing a Methodology Critique

Reviewer Comment: "The proposed sample size seems inadequate for achieving statistical significance."

Response: We appreciate the reviewer's concern about our sample size. We have revised our study design to increase the sample size from 50 to 100 participants (see page 12 of the revised proposal). We've also included a power analysis (page 13) demonstrating that this sample size will provide 90% power to detect a medium effect size (d = 0.5) with α = 0.05.

Example 2: Clarifying a Misunderstanding

Reviewer Comment: "The commercialization plan lacks details on potential partnerships."

Response: We thank the reviewer for highlighting this important aspect. While our original proposal did include information on partnerships (page 24), we recognize that this may not have been sufficiently clear or detailed. We have expanded this section (now on pages 24-26) to provide more specific information on our existing partnerships with [Company X] and [Company Y], as well as our strategy for developing additional partnerships in years 2-3 of the project.

Example 3: Respectfully Disagreeing

Reviewer Comment: "The proposed technology seems to overlap significantly with existing solutions in the market."

Response: We respectfully disagree with the reviewer's assessment of our technology's novelty. While there are indeed existing solutions addressing [problem X], our approach differs significantly in its use of [novel aspect Y] (detailed on page 8). To clarify this distinction, we have added a comparative analysis table (page 9) highlighting the key differences between our technology and the top three competing solutions. We've also included preliminary data demonstrating the superior performance of our approach in [key metric Z] (Figure 3, page 10).

Does Scout Help with Resubmissions?

Yes! Scout helps you with resubmissions even if you had applied before joining as a user. We will intake the reviewer feedback and automatically start to respond to the feedback where we can. We will also provide action items for you and your team where you will need to fill in the gaps from the reviewer feedback.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

  1. Ignoring or dismissing critiques: Address every comment, even if you disagree.
  2. Becoming defensive: Maintain a constructive, solution-oriented tone.
  3. Overpromising: Be realistic about what changes you can make within the scope of the project.
  4. Not making substantial changes: If multiple reviewers highlight an issue, it likely requires significant attention.
  5. Inconsistency: Ensure your responses align with the changes in your revised proposal.

Final Tips

  • If allowed, consider reaching out to the program officer for clarification on reviews.
  • Remember that other aspects of your proposal may have changed (e.g., preliminary data, team composition). Update these as well.
  • Have a colleague review your responses to ensure clarity and completeness.
  • Keep track of all changes made to your proposal for easy reference.

By thoughtfully and systematically addressing reviewer critiques, you can significantly strengthen your resubmission and improve your chances of securing SBIR/STTR funding. Remember, many successful grants were funded only after one or more revisions, so view this process as a valuable step toward achieving your goals.

 

Was this article helpful?
0 out of 0 found this helpful

Comments

0 comments

Article is closed for comments.