NIH Regional Seminar on
Program Funding And Grants Administration
February 2012
Sally J. Rockey, PhD
Deputy Director for Extramural Research
1
National
Institutes of Health
Research Project Grants
Applications, awards, and success rates
2
3
Options for Managing NIH Resources
A. Current Way of Managing
▫ Bottom out success rates (doing nothing but letting
the system correct itself)
B. Other Options
− Reducing or limiting size of awards
− Limiting number of awards held by an PI
− Limiting the amount of funds an PI can hold
− Limiting salaries of PIs
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Option: Reducing Average Size of an Award
FY 2010 Competing RPG Awards:
Total Cost:
Average Cost:
Average Cost - $25k:
Total Savings:
9,287
$3,732,077,099
$401,860
$376,860
$232,175,000
Example of effect on number of RPG Awards in FY 2010:
Competing RPG awards:
RPG success rate*:
FY10 Actual
9,287
20.5%
Estimated Effect
9,903
21.7%
* This RPG success rate is modified to exclude competing supplements, P01 awards and ARRA
funding. There are of course many ways to reduce average cost. Flat dollar amount cuts would
disproportionately affect smaller grants, while a flat or graduated percentage cut may be fairer.
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Option: Limit Number of Awards per PI
Examples
FY 2010 – No Limits
▫ Projecting 9,455 competing NIH RPGs with 20.6% success rate
Limit to 5 RPGs per PI
▫ Estimate 9,470 competing (+15) NIH RPGs with 20.6% success
rate
Limit to 3 RPGs per PI
▫ Estimate 9,719 competing (+264) NIH RPGs with 21.1% success
rate
Limit to 2 RPGs per PI
▫ Estimate 10,411 competing (+956) NIH RPGs with 22.6%
success rate
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Option: Limit Amount of Funds per PI
Examples
Limit PI’s Total RPG Support to $1 Million
• Affects 3,245 PIs with total current funding of $6.4 billion
• Funding for these PIs reduced to $3.245 billion
• Savings of $3.1 billion (estimated one-fourth available for competing awards in any given
year, or approximately $800 million)
• Allows for approximately 2,000 additional competing RPG awards at average cost of
$400,000
Limit PI’s Total RPG Support to $800,000
• Affects 4,629 PIs with total current funding of $7.6 billion
• Funding for these PIs reduced to $3.7 billion
• Savings of $3.9 billion (estimated one-fourth available for competing awards in any given
year, or approximately $975 million)
• Allows for approximately 2,400 additional competing RPG awards at average cost of
$400,000
Limit PI’s Total RPG Support to $400,000
• Affects 12,000 PIs with total current funding of $11.9 billion
• Funding for these PIs reduced to $4.8 billion
• Savings of $7.1 billion (estimated one-fourth available for competing awards in any given
year, or approximately $1.8 billion)
• Allows for approximately 4,400 additional competing RPG awards at average cost of
$400,000
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Option: Limiting Salaries of PIs
Distribution of PIs by Level of Effort
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Input from the Community
• Received comments from 348 entities (individuals and
institutions), with many people commenting multiple times
on the blog.
• Some commenters thought we should keep the current
system, but many others supported implementation of one
or more of the options described.
• Many commenters suggested options that were not
described in the presentation including among others
limiting indirect costs, limiting certain programs (for
example, large project grants), and providing more
resources to small labs and individuals by limiting grants to
large labs.
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Distribution of Principal Investigators by Degree Type
R01-Equivalent Grants Awards, by gender
Tenure-track Status –
PhDs in Basic Science Dept. at Medical Schools
Figure 5 Tenure status for full-time newly hired PhD faculty in basic science
departments at U.S. medical schools, in percent, 1985-2004. (Newly hired faculty
are those at the rank of assistant professor and above, hired in the previous
year.)Source: AAMC Faculty Roster database.
Source: The Continued Evolution of Faculty Appointment and Tenure Policies at U.S. Medical Schools
Bunton, Sarah A.; Mallon, William T. Academic Medicine. 82(3):281-289, March 2007.
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Career Stages of Funding Programs
Kirschstein-NRSA Training Grants
and Fellowships - Numbers
Kirschstein-NRSA institutional research training grants
Applications, awards, and success rates
Estimated Number of NIH-Supported Graduate Students
Sources: NSF Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering
and the NIH Data Book
Estimated Number of NIH-Supported Postdocs
Sources: NSF Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering
and the NIH Data Book
In the Following Three Slides:
Analysis of U.S. Trained PhDs
• From the 1993 – 2008 Survey of Doctorate
Recipients
• These data are for U.S. Trained PhDs only
• Biomedical Fields exclude: Clinical, Psychology
and Social Science Fields
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Relationship Between Science and
Engineering PhD Field and Occupation
Across S&E PhD fields, 50-80% of graduates are employed in
occupations that closely match their PhD field.
100
90
80
Percent of PhDs
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1997
2008
Biological/Life
Sciences
20
1997
2008
Engineering
1997
2008
Math and Computer
Science
1997
2008
Physical Sciences
1997
2008
Psychology and
Social Science
Source: NSF Survey of Doctoral Recipients
Relationship Between Life Sciences
PhD Field and Occupation
Within Life Sciences, Biological Sciences fields have the highest
number of PhDs working in a related occupation.
Percent of the PhDs with Occupation in PhD Field
80
70
60
Agricultural/food sciences Occupation in Ph.D. field
50
40
Biological Sciences - Occupation
in Ph.D. field
30
Chemistry, except biochemistry
- Occupation in Ph.D. field
20
Environmental life sciences Occupation in Ph.D. field
10
0
1997
2008
1-10 years since Ph.D
21
1997
2008
11 or more years since Ph.D
Source: NSF Survey of Doctoral Recipients
U.S. Trained Biomedical PhDs in Research
Occupations, by Years Since Degree
Over 70% of biomedical PhDs begin working in research occupations out of
graduate school; by 11 YSD 60% still work in a research occupation.
90
Percent of Biomedical PhDs
80
70
Primary or secondary job is research 1-5 years since Ph.D
60
Primary or secondary job is research 6-10 years since Ph.D
50
Primary or secondary job is research 11-20 years since Ph.D
40
Primary or secondary job is research More than 20 years since Ph.D
30
1993
1995
1997
1999
2001
Year of Survey
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2003
2006
2008
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Race and Ethnicity of Reporting Principal
Investigators on Research Project Grants
2009
Race, Ethnicity, and NIH Research Awards, Ginther et al.,
http://www.sciencemag.org/hottopics/race-nihfunding/)
Study Question
Analyzed the probability of securing first-time NIH R01*
funding (during 2000-2006) by race/ethnicity, controlling
for observable characteristics such as NIH training,
research experience, and institution.
*The R01 is the most prevalent NIH grant award mechanism and is considered to be
the “gold standard” by which many research institutions measure the success of faculty.
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Main Conclusions of Ginther et al.:CONLUSIONS
Differences in Award Rates
 Black and Asian R01 applicants
are significantly less likely to
receive a Type 1 R01 award.
30%
R01 Award Probability
25%
‡
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
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Black or African
American
Asian
‡
Hispanic
White
Full Sample
• Differences in Asian applicant
award rates related to US
Citizenship.
• Even after controlling for
factors that influence the
likelihood of success, Black
applicants are still 10
percentage points less likely
than White applicants to
receive a Type 1 R01 award
Diversity-related Action Items
• Two high level groups have been formed by the NIH Director to recommend
actions that help NIH achieve its goal of increasing the diversity of its
workforce and creating a sustainable environment that supports diversity
▫ NIH Diversity Task force – internal group of NIH leaders
▫ Advisory Committee to the NIH Director Working Group on Diversity in the
Biomedical Research Workforce (http://acd.od.nih.gov/DBR.asp)
•
•
•
Funded several extramural grant programs, including the NIH pathfinder
award, that are designed to study different interventions to strengthen the
pipeline in a manner that will help improve workforce diversity
As review experience correlates with success, we have just established an
“Early Career Reviewers” program to increase exposure of investigators
from diverse institutions to the review process
Planning to conduct experiments on the review process to determine if bias
exists, e.g.:
▫ De-identify applications
▫ Test reviewer ability to determine applicant race
▫ Assess training against bias using programs such as Project Implicit
(https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/)
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Age Distribution of NIH Principal Investigators and
Medical School Faculty
1980
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_e
mbedded&v=rL_J-Yl55K0
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