Recruiting, promoting, and awarding our scientific staff for their exceptional contributions is a critical part of retaining outstanding talent. FDA acknowledges our scientists’ significant contributions to our mission in a number of ways.

Peer Review

For over three decades FDA’s competitive Peer Review Program, composed of scientific subject matter experts and human resource specialists, has supported the Agency's recruitment and promotion activities. The program ensures that FDA retains a top-tier scientific workforce that can apply the latest technology and science-based standards to the regulatory challenges presented by new FDA-regulated products.

FDA has two Agency-wide Peer Review Committees for the Medical Officer and the Regulatory Review Scientist, and seven Research Scientist Peer Review Committees.

Senior Biomedical Research Service (SBRS)

The Senior Biomedical Research Service (SBRS) is used to recruit and retain the most outstanding research and review scientists.Because the number of SBRS positions available to FDA is limited, scientists are proposed for membership only when they meet the rigorous criteria delineated in SRBS Policies and Procedures and if the flexibilities of other senior-level personnel systems are insufficient to meet FDA's recruitment and retention needs.

FDA's Scientific Achievement Awards

Scientific Achievement Awards are another are way that FDA recognizes the vital role our scientists play in supporting new approaches to developing and evaluating the products we regulate.

Our efforts to bring new medical products to people in need would not be possible without a staff of highly skilled scientists, who strive to create the new tools, standards, and approaches needed to assess the safety, efficacy, quality, and performance of breakthough therapies.

These 16 awards recognize the importance of FDA’s many scientific staff, whose work, for example, in the category of Laboratory Science, spans medical countermeasures to food safety microbiology, putting them at the forefront of new science and technology.