In establishing the ASE Foundation's Center for Excellence in Surgical Education, Research and Training ("CESERT") in 1999, the Foundation's Board contended with a number of challenges. "On one hand", recalls Jim Hebert, M.D., then Foundation President, " we were endeavoring to work out the dozens of logistical and operational issues related to the distribution and oversight of almost $750,000. On the other, we knew that CESERT's success was ultimately going to be reliant on the insights, experience and objectivity of our Grants Review Committee, those skilled educators who would analyze every proposal and make recommendations to the Foundation's Board."

CESERT was one of twenty one "centers of excellence" established by United States Surgical in the 1990s to help support and advance the science of surgical education in North America. CESERT, the funding center established by the ASE, was the only non-institution based "center", the others all being located at medical schools or universities.

In its contract with United States Surgical, to guarantee that only the most important and relevant pilot projects would be funded, the ASE Foundation pledged to establish a panel of nationally prominent surgical educators, both ASE and non-ASE members, to review each proposal. The Committee meets twice yearly and makes recommendations to the Foundation's Board of Directors, the body with the responsibility for approving or disapproving all grants.

According to Richard Spence, M.D., Former Chairman of the Foundation, "Because of the thoroughness of their review, not once has the Foundation Board had a substantive reservation about the recommendations we have received from the Grants Review Committee. These are very skilled, insightful professionals on whose judgment we have come to confidently rely."