Updated Analyses Suggest Continued Decline in Research Project Grant Funding Inequalities for NIH-Supported Investigators, but Organizational Inequalities Remain: FY 1998 to FY 2023
We previously showed in this January 2022 blog (based on this paper) that the inequalities in the distribution of Research Project Grant (RPG) funding to principal investigators increased, especially at the top end of funding, during the NIH budget doubling and the first few years after the 2013 budget sequestration. The degree of inequality appeared to fall, however, after NIH implemented the Next Generation Researchers Initiative (NGRI) near the end of FY2017. Here we present follow-up data that shows that the trends seen in recent years appear to be continuing in fiscal year (FY) 2023.
When reading this post, p...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - April 19, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike Funding data NGRI RPG scientific workforce diversity Source Type: funding
Announcing Revisions to the NIH Fellowship Review and Application Process
Noni Byrnes, Ph.D., Director of NIH Center for Scientific Review
This blog has been co-authored with Noni Byrnes, Ph.D., Director, Center for Scientific Review, NIH. This is also posted on the Review Matters blog.
We are pleased to announce the details of changes to the peer review process and application forms for fellowship applications, to be implemented for applications submitted for due dates on or after January 25th, 2025. (See NOT-OD-24-107.) As we have discussed on this blog before (see here, here, here, and here), these changes are meant to facilitate the identification of the most promising candidates a...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - April 18, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike applications fellowship Peer review postdocs Source Type: funding
Changes Coming to Applications and Peer Review in January 2025
NIH is implementing multiple changes that will impact the preparation and peer review of most grant applications submitted to NIH for due dates on or after January 25, 2025. Although each of these initiatives have specific goals, they are all meant to simplify, clarify, or ensure greater fairness.
We just released a guide notice (NOT-OD-24-084), what we are referring to as an “uber” notice, that provides an overview of each change to help the community contextualize them as details are released over the next few months. We developed this video (25 min) to provide you with an overview of the following changes:
...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - April 4, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike applications Grants policy Peer review Source Type: funding
Preparing for Funding Opportunities Using the Simplified Review Framework
Noni Byrnes, Ph.D., Director of NIH Center for Scientific Review
Last October, we announced that NIH was implementing a simplified review framework for most research project grants (RPGs). As a reminder, in the simplified review framework NIH aims to better facilitate the mission of scientific peer review – identification of the strongest, highest-impact research. The changes are intended to:
Enable peer reviewers to better focus on answering the key questions necessary to assess the scientific and technical merit of proposed research projects: Can and should the proposed research project be conducted?
Mitigate ...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - April 4, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike funding opportunities Peer review Source Type: funding
Why Do I Sometimes Get Different RePORTER Results when Using Advanced Search vs. Quick Search?
Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools Expenditures and Results (RePORTER) is an electronic tool that allows users to search a repository of both intramural and extramural NIH-funded research projects and publications and patents resulting from NIH funding. Users can query the system in two distinct ways, either via “Advanced Search” or “Quick Search.” But its worth noting there can be a difference in the query results depending on which approach is used.
As we first explained on this NIH Open Mike blog post, Quick Search is helpful for performing simple queries. Advanced Search allows you to use precisely de...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - April 3, 2024 Category: Research Authors: NIH Staff Tags: You Ask, We Answer Funding data RePORT RePORTER Source Type: funding
How Grant Success Rates Do (Or Do Not) Track With the NIH Budget: A Model of Funding Dynamics
From 2014 to 2018, the NIH budget increased every year, and yet, the Research Project Grant (RPG) success rate remained relatively constant at ~20%. From 2003 to 2006 the NIH budget remained relatively flat, yet the success rate decreased dramatically from 30% to 20%. Why don’t success rates neatly track the NIH budget? While inflation plays a role, there are more fundamental forces at play.
Here I present a series of budget and success rate scenarios that are largely based on a Service Science publication by Larson, Ghaffarzadegan, and Diaz. The bottom-line up front: NIH funding dynamics are strongly affected by obli...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - March 25, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike Budget Funding data Source Type: funding
How Implementing a 2022 Law is Helping Us Ensure Safe and Respectful Workplaces
Nearly two years ago, we implemented a provision in a law (Section 239 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022). The law requires NIH grant recipients to notify us when their senior key personnel on awards are removed from their position or are otherwise disciplined due to concerns about harassment, bullying, retaliation, or hostile working conditions. This step represented an important milestone to help ensure safe and respectful workplaces, free from harassment and discrimination. Here we provide an update on the implementation of Section 239.
Table 1 shows how many harassment self-disclosures we received in ca...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - March 13, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike Compliance harassment Source Type: funding
How Many Researchers: The FY 2023 Cumulative Investigator Rate
We are pleased to share our annual snapshot of how many researchers NIH supports. These fiscal year (FY) 2023 data are also available in the NIH Data Book (see report #303) and represent awards made with traditional and supplemental coronavirus appropriations. Please keep in mind that these data are distinct from success rates, however, which are application-based metrics (see this recent post).
Our cumulative investigator rate is an NIH-wide person-based metric. The metric is calculated as the number of unique principal investigators who were designated on an NIH research project g...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - March 6, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike cumulative investigator rate Funding data funding rate Source Type: funding
Seeking Ideas on Using Common Data Elements for NIH-Supported Clinical Research
Do you have thoughts on how common data elements (CDEs) may be used in NIH-supported clinical research? If so, please share them in response to this recently released Request for Information.
CDEs allow for easier exchange of data across different research areas because they are standardized, consistent, interoperable, and defined. They represent one way that NIH implements FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles. In addition, as we mentioned in this post from 2021, CDEs help us implement one aim of the NIH Data Science Strategic plan, which is having data resources that maximize th...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - February 28, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike common data elements data management Data sharing Request For Information (RFI) Source Type: funding
FY 2023 By the Numbers: Extramural Grant Investments in Research
We are back again to share our annual update on NIH application, award, and success rate data. Here we present our most recent information for fiscal year (FY) 2023 enacted appropriations. As a note, the NIH Data Book has other historical grants data and is being updated with more FY 2023 grants and application data. Similar to our FYs 2020, 2021, and 2022 posts, spending related to special appropriations for coronavirus are excluded here, but may be found using RePORTER’s advanced search capabilities.
We spent $34.9 billion of our total $47.7 billion appropriation in FY 2023 for competing and noncompeting grant a...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - February 21, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike awards grants Success Rate Source Type: funding
Unmasking Potential: Introducing New Beta Version Tool for Biomedical Dataset Discovery
Guest post by Dianne Babski, Director of the NLM User Services and Collections Division (USCD), and Peter Seibert, USCD Librarian. Originally posted on the NLM Musings from the Mezzanine blog.
Peter Seibert, Librarian, User Services and Collections Division, NLM
Dianne Babski, Director, User Services and Collections Division, NLM
In a world of rapidly changing digital expectations, new formats to access and store information, and a dynamic biomedical landscape, users want to connect to data across an abundant, widely available, and growing ecosystem of biomedical research with one click. That is the future we are w...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - February 16, 2024 Category: Research Authors: NIH Staff Tags: blog Open Mike Data sharing Funding data Source Type: funding
NIH Director Statement on Catalyzing the Development of Novel Alternative Methods
This report, which the ACD enthusiastically endorsed and conveyed to the agency, recommended that NIH work with the community to:
Prioritize the development and use of combinatorial NAMs
Establish resources, infrastructure, and collaborations to promote the use of interoperable, reliable, and well curated/high quality datasets produced from research using NAMs
Promote effective dissemination and interconnection of NAM technologies
Invest in comprehensive training to bolster continuous advances in development and use of NAMs
Facilitate multidisciplinary teams with expertise across technologies and the lifecy...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - February 9, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike Alternatives to Animals Animal Welfare rigor Source Type: funding
Increased Use of the Childcare Cost Support Policy by National Research Service Award (NRSA) Fellows in FY 2023
Support for families at critical periods is a known reason why some researchers, especially female and underrepresented scientists, leave research careers (see these articles from Academic Medicine and FASEB). For this reason, NIH has developed and implemented family-friendly policies aimed at supporting early-career researchers. One of these policies provides up to $2,500 in childcare cost support to full-time National Research Service Award (NRSA) fellows and trainees. In 2022, we shared some preliminary data on how many NRSA fellows requested and were issued these awards. Today, we are pleased to update these data for i...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - February 6, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike childcare cost Family Friendly fellowship NRSA postdocs Source Type: funding
Carrying the Momentum from a Year of Open Science Forward in 2024
Guest post by Maryam Zaringhalam, PhD, Data Science and Open Science Officer for the NLM Office of Strategic Initiatives; Lisa Federer, PhD, Acting Director of NLM Office of Strategic Initiatives; and Martha Meacham, MA, MLIS, Project Director for NLM’s Network of the National Library of Medicine. Originally posted on the Musings from the Mezzanine blog.
Martha Meacham, MA, MLIS, Project Director for NLM’s Network of the National Library of Medicine
Lisa Federer, PhD, Acting Director of NLM Office of Strategic Initiatives
Maryam Zaringhalam, PhD, Data Science and Open Science Officer for the NLM Office of Strat...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - January 26, 2024 Category: Research Authors: NIH Staff Tags: blog Open Mike common data elements Data sharing preprints Source Type: funding
Learning More About NIH Research Directions and How You Can Provide Input: Highlighting Autoimmune Disease Research
Regular readers of this blog know that we often seek feedback on various grant policies and initiatives broadly effecting the extramural research community. As just a few examples from last year, we sought input on research misconduct regulations, care and use of laboratory cephalopods, foreign subaward agreements, postdoctoral training, and review of fellowship applications. There are also opportunities to weigh in on future directions for the many different disease-specific research areas NIH supports, which we typically do not discuss on this blog. Here, we wanted to briefly share some resources about these comment oppo...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - January 16, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Mike Lauer Tags: blog Open Mike RePORT Request For Information (RFI) strategic plan Source Type: funding
