JWST User Documentation

Proposals reviewed by the Discussion panels are subject to a two-stage review process: 1) preliminary grading; and 2) the review meeting.

Discussion panelists will read and grade all proposals that they are assigned, and write feedback comments for a subset of those. They also advise their Panel Chair and Vice Chair on a subset of the Large GO, Treasury GO, Legacy AR, and Pure Parallel proposals assigned for review to the Executive Committee.

Prep Work & General Info

Preliminary Grading

Pre-Meeting

Discussion Meeting

Post-Meeting

Before November 12, 2025

November 12, 2025 - January 9, 2026

January 9 - February 2, 2026

February 2 - 5, 2026
(Galactic Panels: Solar System; Exoplanet Atmospheres and Habitability; Exoplanetary System Formation and Dynamics; Stars and Stellar Populations; Gas, Dust and the ISM)

February 3 - 6, 2026
(Extragalactic Panels: Nearby Galaxies to Cosmic Noon; High-Redshift Galaxies and the Distant Universe; Super Massive Black Holes and Active Galaxies)

February 7 - 11, 2026

Before getting started, familiarize yourself with the review process, JWST and its instruments, the types of proposals you will be reviewing, and who to ask for help!

During this phase, you will:

Be assigned as a Grader for a subset of the proposals assigned to your panel.
Check for and report additional conflicts of interest with any of your assigned proposals ASAP.
Read all of your assigned proposals.
Enter numerical scores as preliminary grades for all of your assigned proposals.
Use “Remarks” section in SPIRIT to write down your comments on the proposal. This information will be used by the Primary and Secondary Reviewers at the time of writing the feedback comments, and is particularly useful in the case the proposal is triaged and not discussed during the meeting.
Report to the Science Policy Division, and as soon as possible, any proposal that you think should be disqualified for violating proposal guidelines (e.g. DAPR, page limits, font size, etc.). Not doing so in a timely manner, i.e. waiting to report it until after the proposal has been discussed, wastes precious review resources if the proposal ends up being disqualified.

STScI will use the grades received by each reviewer assigned to each proposal to rank the proposals and triage the panel so that only the top proposals are discussed in the panel meeting.

Additionally, you will:

Be designated as Primary Reviewer or Secondary Reviewer to fraction of your grading assignments.
It is strongly encouraged to take notes summarizing the strengths and weaknesses for your primary/secondary designations during this phase, as you will be 1) leading the discussion of these proposals during the meeting, if they survive triage; 2) writing feedback comments on these proposals, regardless of triage status.

During this phase, you will:

Prepare for the panel meeting.
Review all proposals listed for discussion, especially those you did not read for preliminary grading.
Consider whether you wish to raise a triaged proposal for discussion.
Read the subset of Executive Committee proposals, as directed by your Chair and Vice Chair (these proposals will be discussed, but not graded during the meeting).

The panel meets for 4 days. During this phase, you will:

Discuss proposals in turn and enter numerical scores as grades after each discussion.
Use “Remarks” section in SPIRIT to write down your comments on the proposal, while the discussion is still fresh in your mind. This information will be used by the Primary and Secondary Reviewers at the time of writing the feedback comments.
Assess the final ranking of proposals for science balance.
Review team expertise for top ranked proposals.
Discuss (but not grade) a subset of Large GO, Treasury GO, Legacy AR, and Pure Parallel programs to provide feedback to your panel Chair and Vice Chair that they can bring to the Executive Committee.

During this phase, you will:

Write proposal feedback comments for every primary assignment (including triaged proposals). Reviewers are forbidden from uploading proposal content or review materials to Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) tools since this violates the confidentiality of the review process.
Assist the primary reviewer with proposal feedback comments for every secondary assignment.

Please remember to remove review materials from your computer after the review.

Learn more about:

Useful topics from previous phases:

Learn more about:

Useful topics from previous phases:

Learn more about:

Useful topics from previous phases:

Learn more about:

Proposal Feedback Comments

Useful topics from previous phases: