1. The board of curators shall award funds to investigators for research projects that promote an advancement of knowledge in the area of specified disease processes or injuries. For this purpose, the board of curators may request an appropriation annually. The board of curators may also request additional funds for administrative overhead not to exceed ten percent of the annual appropriation of research funds.

2. The advisory board shall solicit and select proposals for research projects according to procedures approved by the board of curators. The selection procedures shall provide for peer review of the background and ability of each investigator, the merits of the work proposed and an evaluation of the potential for each research project to achieve productive results. The peer review shall be conducted by the advisory board in accordance with such procedures as are utilized by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Such review shall consist of professional evaluation of the proposal by experts on the topic who are not affiliated in any way with the submitting investigator. The results of this external evaluation and the related discussion by the advisory board shall not be open to the public. The final awards of the advisory board and all of its other proceedings shall be open to the public.