Fresh-(Faced) Funding
Making grant application processes tougher can have an unexpected and dramatic effect on the demographics of applicants. Let’s not force young investigators to fall at the first hurdle.
As the training officer at the National Institute on Aging of the NIH for 10 years, I helped trainees and junior investigators recognize their enthusiasm for research and creativity, before bringing them into our research programs. So when US Congressman Andy Harris (Rep-MD), a member of the House Committee on Appropriations and himself a former NIH grantee, expressed concern that the average NIH grantee in 2014 was well into their 50s, despite ongoing efforts from NIH to encourage younger investigators, it struck a chord with me. I was happy to join a committee to try to get to the bottom of why early-stage researchers were losing out on NIH funding and what we could do about it. Together with Rene Etcheberrigaray and Chuck Dumais from the Center for Scientific Review, I reviewed data from seven years of research project grants (R01) and made some interesting – and I hope useful – observations.
When we introduced our new and early-stage investigators policies back in 2007, there was a very positive response from the community. A review of the data from 2007 to 2009 suggests that young researchers significantly increased their applications for R01 awards. Separating out new and early-stage investigator applications in the review process and actively advancing new investigators seems to have led to a healthy increase in applications from junior researchers. But then something happened. Between 2010 and 2014 the number of junior investigators submitting applications toppled by almost 40 percent. So what changed? In 2009, the NIH streamlined the grant review process, by cutting the number of amended applications investigators could submit from two to one. We all expected that applications would decrease as a result, but what we didn’t foresee was that virtually all of the decrease would be made up of applications from the most junior investigators, who were most likely to need more than one round of amends. The change, while not targeting junior researchers, effectively wiped out all the gains made by the new and early-stage investigator policies.
The move to reduce the number of reapplications proved unpopular with the research community, and was scrapped in 2014, reinstating the chance for a second resubmission (albeit with a slightly different process). I was able to look at the first two council rounds after we changed the policy and the shift was extraordinary. There was an all-round increase in applications, as you might expect, but it was the junior investigators who increased their applications the most. In fact, their submissions shot up over less than a year by more than 40 percent, reversing the decline. Over time, we hope to see the increase in submissions become an increase in awards.
Are we doing enough to bring down the average age of principal investigators? We don’t know. But we’re going to be monitoring the situation closely over the next few years, to see if there is a shift in the age of investigators receiving grants, and in particular, the age of first-time investigators. With the right policies in place, we hope new and early-stage investigators will be a growing segment of our grantees.
The crux of our findings was that junior investigators applying for grants were strongly impacted by any policies that made it harder or easier to get an award. Senior investigators on the other hand, with research careers well under way, submit applications regardless. I think we all agree that we must have a healthy pipeline of new researchers coming into the NIH stream, to maintain the vibrancy of research – and funding is a major factor for young scientists when deciding whether or not to pursue a research career. In simple terms, new investigators who feel that they cannot find funding may simply choose an alternative career, irrespective of their talent or creativity. The clear message for us – and other funding bodies – is that we must think very carefully before making the funding process harder; it will always hit our early-stage investigators hardest.
Read more from Robin at the Inside NIA Blog
A native of Scotland, Barr obtained his undergraduate and doctoral degrees in psychology from the University of Oxford, England. Barr joined the National Institute on Aging in 1987 as a program administrator in the Behavioral and Social Research Program. During that time he helped to develop the Institute's research initiatives on cognitive functioning, human factors, and older drivers. He helped to establish the NIA Roybal Centers and the Institute's ACTIVE initiative examining cognitive interventions to improve functioning in older adults. From 1994–2006, he was Deputy Head of the Division of Extramural Activities and the NIA Training Officer. He was appointed Director of the division in 2007, helping to shape policies toward new and early stage investigators, managing the National Advisory Council on Aging and advising the NIA Director on all extramural activities of the Institute.