How Many Researchers: The Positive Trend Continued into FY 2020

Now that fiscal year (FY) 2020 grants data are available in the NIH Data Book, let’s see how many unique scientists sought support on NIH research project grants (RPGs). The “cumulative investigator rate,” a person-based metric that looks at the likelihood that unique investigators are funded over a five-year window, has moved in a positive direction in recent years (see here for FYs 2019, 2018, and 2017), and we were pleased to see the trend mostly continue into FY 2020. Before diving into the 2020 data, a quick reminder about the NIH’s five-year cumulative investigator rate. To determine it, we take the number of unique principal investigators who were designated on an NIH RPG, activity or mechanism (simply referred to as “awardees” here) divided by the number of unique principal investigators who were designated on applications (simply referred to as “applicants” here) over a five-year period. This timeframe was chosen because most research grants last for more than one year and applicants submit applications with the goal being securing multiple years of funding. As this is an NIH-wide metric, if an investigator is designated on separate awards from multiple NIH Institutes or Centers in a particular five-year timeframe, they will still only be counted a single time across the entire period at the NIH level. Please also keep in mind that this metric is distinct from the success rate computed annually for applications (i.e. not people) submitted to NIH. The ...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - Category: Research Authors: Tags: blog Open Mike biomedical research workforce cumulative investigator rate Source Type: funding