In the October 2008 NIH Extramural Nexus, the NIH describes some of the changes coming to Peer Review both in the 2009 and 2010 funding years. Among them:

• Each review criteria will receive an individual score, instead of one score for the entire application
• Applications which are streamlined (i.e. unscored, not discussed during review) will now receive numerical scores so that applicants can judge whether to resubmit
• Starting in 2010, R01 applications will be shortened to 12 pages for the research plan.