MIRA Renewals: Award Rates and Budget Changes

NIGMS funded its first round of renewals for the Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) program in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021. In this post, we compare data on the award rates and award sizes of MIRA renewals and R01 renewals to provide some insights into the early outcomes of MIRA renewals. We also examine award rates and budget changes for investigators applying to convert their NIGMS R01s to MIRAs. In the first section, we present award rates (the percentage of reviewed applications that receive funding), considering both programs overall and then FY 2021 renewal applications specifically. The second section describes the award sizes for the two types of grants collectively, followed by award size changes for FY 2021 renewals. Where sample sizes and privacy concerns allow, we distinguish between established investigators (EIs) and early stage investigators (ESIs) renewing their first grants (“ex-ESIs”) as they often have different characteristics for award rates and sizes. All budget values shown in the post are yearly direct costs. Table 1 shows summary highlights of these renewal award rate and budget change data. MIRA renewals had higher award rates and budget increases than R01 renewals. The R01-to-MIRA conversion rate was also higher than the R01 renewal rate, and conversions received the largest percentage budget increases for principal investigators (PIs) with less than $400,000 in prior annual funding. Budget cuts predominantly applied to invest...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Tags: Director’s Messages Funding Trends Funding Outcomes Funding Policies MIRA R01 Source Type: blogs