Applications, Resubmissions, and the Relative Citation Ratio

Measuring the impact of NIH grants is an important input in our stewardship of research funding. One metric we can use to look at impact, discussed previously on this blog, is the relative citation ratio (or RCR). This measure – which NIH has made freely available through the iCite tool – aims to go further than just raw numbers of published research findings or citations, by quantifying the impact and influence of a research article both within the context of its research field and benchmarked against publications resulting from NIH R01 awards. In light of our more recent posts on applications and resubmissions, we’d like to go a step further by looking at long-term bibliometric outcomes as a function of submission number. In other words, are there any observable trends in the impact of publications resulting from an NIH grant funded as an A0, versus those funded as an A1 or A2? And does that answer change when we take into account how much funding each grant received? First, let’s briefly review long-term historical data on R01-equivalent applications and resubmissions. Figure 1 shows the proportions of over 82,000 Type 1 R01-equivalent awards by resubmission status. We see dramatic shifts: 20 years ago, and during the doubling, the majority of awards came from A0 applications. By the time of the payline crash (~2006), most awards came from A1 and A2 applications. In 2016, several years after A2s were eliminated, half of awards came from A0 applications and half fro...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - Category: Research Authors: Tags: blog Open Mike A0 A1 A2 amended applications Award rate bibliometrics citations Funding data RCR relative citation ratio resubmissions Source Type: funding