National Institutes Of Health Awards Research Articles

Biomedical research funding: when the game gets tough, winners start to play

Extramural funding provides major support for biomedical research in academia, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants often constitute direct evaluation criteria for promotions and tenure. Therefore, NIH budget trends influence long-term scientific strategies and career decisions, as well as the progress of science itself. Our analysis of the last 37 years of NIH awards, however, reveals that the success rate of grant applications submitted for funding is negatively related to the total yearly amount of (inflation-adjusted) NIH extramural expenditure. Instead, as might be expected, the ratio between available funding and the number of submission directly predicts the probability of winning support in any given year. We purport that the considerable success rate variability can be parsimoniously explained by a proportional but delayed reaction of the number of applications to budget fluctuations. As a counterintuitive consequence, grant proposals conceived during lean periods might stand the best chance of success.

National Institutes of Health Awards $850,000 Small Business Innovation Research Fast-Track Grant to Fluential to Develop Speech Translation System for Hospitals

National Institutes of Health Awards $850,000 Small Business Innovation Research Fast-Track Grant to Fluential to Develop Speech Translation System for Hospitals

How Important Is the Contribution of Surgical Specialties to a Medical School’s NIH Funding?

To determine the relative contribution and importance of five surgical specialties (general surgery, urology, otolaryngology, neurosurgery, and orthopedics) to the total National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding at medical schools. Publicly available NIH funding data from 1996 to 2004 were analyzed. From 1998 through 2003 the NIH budget increased from 11.2 billion to 21.9 billion dollars. Overall, NIH funding to departments of medicine was the greatest contributor to any individual medical school's total NIH funding, comprising 28.4% of total NIH awards on average, with a correlation coefficient highly predictive of medical school's ranking for NIH awards (cc = 0.93). Total NIH funding by different surgical specialties varied greatly, both within and between institutions. Together all of the surgical subspecialties combined accounted for 4.8% of medical school NIH awards on average from the years 1996 to 2004. Among the surgical specialties, general surgery received the largest fraction of NIH dollars followed by otolaryngology, neurosurgery, urology, and orthopedics. Although general surgery had the highest overall correlation coefficient of the surgical departments during the early years of the study period (r = 0.71 in 1996), its correlation significantly decreased during the period of study (as low as r = 0.54 in 2002). Surgical departments as an aggregate have continued to receive a stable overall fraction of NIH awards. The total funding to the different surgical departments varies considerably between institutions and does not correlate well with total institutional funding. The downward trend in the correlation of general surgery funding to total institutional funding suggests a decline in support for surgical research in this specialty nationwide.

Mechanisms for Mentored Career Development: The NIH Research Career Awards and Other National Awards

Overview/purpose The transition from a postdoctoral fellow to an independent academic clinician-scientist is a major step in the career development of both physician-scientists and scientists interested in biological disorders. The vulnerability of this step, especially in the present climate of reduced funding possibilities, is well recognized by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other major scientific funding agencies, such as the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the American Heart Association (AHA), and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Because the NIH grants remain the gold standard of such awards and because these awards tend to be for a substantial sum of support for 4 to 5 years, the NIH awards will be the focus of this presentation. Much of the presentation below applies to granting mechanisms through the National, Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for physician-scientists, but certainly the general advice also applies to other NIH-funding sources through the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and other national societies. Details of the available programs are best obtained from the website of each organization, or go to www.nih.gov and pick “Grants Funding Opportunities.” The K08, K23 and the new K99/R00 Research Career Award (RCA) grant mechanisms are excellent means for beginning an academic career as a clinician-scientist. The K08 award is intended for individuals whose research is primarily laboratory based, while the K23 award is for investigators whose focus is patient-oriented research. The K99/R00 RCA award is for individuals somewhat further along in their career development who need a limited number of years of further mentoring prior to transitioning to an individual award. All of these grants remain strongly supported by the NIH as a mechanism for assisting junior faculty in achieving independence, but the availability of each award varies greatly between Institutions, and one needs to know both the official and unofficial status of each award in each Institution to know what would be best for an individual candidate. In this session, the details of how to successfully apply for these awards will be discussed primarily from the viewpoints of a recent successful applicant at the NIH and a senior scientist who has been involved in such reviews for the NHLBI. Most important to remember is that, unlike an RO1 application, these awards are mentored grant applications. Therefore, not only is the proposed science evaluated, but more importantly, the following components are evaluated: the candidate, the mentor, the career development plan, the potential of the proposed research to train the applicant for an independent career, and institutional support for the candidate.

NIH Funding in Family Medicine: An Analysis of 2003 Awards

We wanted to analyze National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards to departments of family medicine. We obtained the list of NIH awards to departments of family medicine in 2003, and collected additional information from the Internet regarding each principal investigator (PI), including whether he or she worked primarily in a core (central) organizational component within a family medicine department. One hundred forty-nine NIH awards were granted to 45 departments of family medicine, for a total of 60,085,000 dollars. Of 146 awards with a designated PI, approximately two thirds of awards (89, 61%) and awarded dollars (39,850,000 dollars, 70%) went to PIs who were either not full-time family medicine faculty primarily working in family medicine departments, or they were not working in core family medicine organizational components. Few awards to physician PIs in these non-core areas were to family physicians (4 of 37, 11%), whereas most awards to physician PIs in core family medicine areas went to family physicians (40 of 45, 89%). In contrast, most K awards (research career programs) went to PIs in core areas (19 of 23, 83%), and most to family physicians (17 of 23, 74%). Nationally, only 17 R01 awards (research project, traditional) went to family physicians. Most NIH awards to family medicine departments went to PIs in noncore organizational components, where most physician PIs were not family physicians. Family medicine departments interested in increasing NIH funding may want to consider 4 models that appear to exist: individual faculty in core departmental components, K awards, core faculty also working in university-wide organizational components that provide research infrastructure, and integrating noncore administrative components into the department.

The Elephant in the Room: NIH Funding of Faculty-Initiated Award Proposals

The Elephant in the Room: NIH Funding of Faculty-Initiated Award Proposals

A Call for Social Work Research from the National Institutes of Health

Previous editorials in this journal have noted the importance of expanding the capacity and improving the quality of social work research. Topics discussed in these editorials have addressed the nature and rigor of social work research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and research infrastructure in schools of social work (Fortune, 1999; Jenson, 2005; Proctor, 2002, 2003). Although improvements have occurred in each of these areas, considerable work remains in the quest to increase the impact and status of social work research. A new development in meeting this goal emerged recently with the release of a program announcement from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) aimed at advancing social work research (see http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-06-081.html). NIH SEEKS PROPOSALS FOR EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE In December 2005, the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) released a program announcement (PA) with three award mechanisms targeting social work research. Research on Social Work Practice and Concepts in Health is a call for proposals to investigate the effects of theoretically and empirically based social work practice on health outcomes for people experiencing medical and behavioral problems (PA-06-081). The PA is the product of efforts led by the Social Work Research Working Group, a team composed of representatives from NIH Institutes and Centers charged by Congress to develop a social work research agenda across NIH. In NIH Plan for Social Work Research (NIH, 2003), the group identified nine recommendations to enhance social work research. One proposed a new initiative by NIH to solicit empirical studies examining the effects of social work services and interventions on medical and behavioral outcomes for people receiving assistance in health care and nonspecialty health care settings (in schools, social services agencies, or correctional facilities, for example).The Research on Social Work Practice and Concepts in Health announcement is an outcome of this recommendation. This new NIH announcement is important for several reasons. The PA publicly acknowledges the contribution of social work practice to the enhancement and efficacy of medical interventions targeting health problems. Significantly, the language in the PA goes beyond the proposition that social work strategies are mere enhancements to existing services and interventions. The existence of a social work knowledge base that offers unique and significant clinical expertise to interdisciplinary intervention efforts with client groups across multiple systems of care is clearly recognized. Specifically, the PA calls for investigations that apply empirically derived knowledge of efficacious interdisciplinary and coordinated intervention strategies aimed at improving health outcomes. Finally, the initiative seeks to advance sound scientific studies that will develop and test innovative social work approaches to ameliorating adverse health conditions. The need for at least four types of social work investigations are highlighted in the announcement: (1) studies that assess the effectiveness of existing social work services and interventions on health outcomes; (2) investigations to develop and test the effects of innovative social work interventions on client functioning; (3) proposals that aim to improve health outcomes through interventions delivered in nontraditional health care settings; and (4) studies that examine effective program implementation strategies in communities. The initiative emphasizes collaborative and interdisciplinary projects based on a public health framework. The standard R01, R03, and R21 NIH award mechanisms are identified in the PA. OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES The NIH Research on Social Work Practice and Concepts in Health PA gives long-overdue recognition to the unique and shared strengths of social work intervention. …

Anesthesiology physician scientists in academic medicine: a wake-up call.

Physician scientists perform biomedical research ranging from fundamental molecular studies to clinical trials. As such, physician scientists have a pivotal role in the biomedical research enterprise. The foundation for physician scientist leadership in the subspecialty of anesthesiology is highly dependent on the success of young investigators as they develop independent careers involving basic and clinical investigation. Hence, a leading priority of anesthesiology must be to nurture the academic careers of physician scientists within the specialty. Over the past decade, during a period of budgetary expansion by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the number of NIH grant applications from physicians, in contrast to the number of grant proposals from Ph.D. scientists, has been slow to increase. Likewise, growth in NIH awards to physicians working in anesthesiology departments has also been slow.1 Junior clinical anesthesiology faculty across the country find their ability to develop NIH-funded research programs limited by inadequate or overly fragmented research start-up time and by inconsistent approaches to research mentoring. In concert, the recent abrupt decrease in rate of growth of NIH funding now threatens not only the pace of our progress, but survival of physician scientist activity within anesthesiology. Based on these observations, anesthesiology is at risk of losing its status as a respected academic discipline within the broader biomedical community. Based on historic analysis of periods of limited NIH budgets, critical analysis of anesthesiology research training programs relative to peer academic specialties,1 and considering the forecasted continued high demand for clinical manpower in our academic medical centers, we present the case for radical change in our approach to training within the specialty. Although effective solutions will require significant sacrifice by all sectors of the specialty, we propose that modest steps are far too late and will no longer succeed. This article, while seeking to inform and educate, is above all a passionate call for decisive action.

Relationship Between National Institutes of Health Research Awards to US Medical Schools and Managed Care Market Penetration

Moy, Ernest; Mazzaschi, Anthony J.; Levin, Rebecca J.; Blake, David A.; Griner, Paul F. Author Information

Relationship Between National Institutes of Health Research Awards to US Medical Schools and Managed Care Market Penetration

Medical research conducted in academic medical centers is often dependent on support from clinical revenues generated in these institutions. Anecdotal evidence suggests that managed care has the potential to affect research conducted in academic medical centers by challenging these clinical revenues. To examine whether empirical evidence supports a relationship between managed care and the ability of US medical schools to sustain biomedical research. Data on annual extramural research grants awarded to US medical schools by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from fiscal years 1986 to 1995 were obtained, and each medical school was matched to a market for which information about health maintenance organization (HMO) penetration in 1995 was available. Growth in total NIH awards, traditional research project (R01) awards, R01 awards to clinical and basic science departments, and changes in institutional ranking by NIH awards were compared among schools located in markets with low, medium, and high managed care penetration. Medical schools in all markets had comparable rates of growth in NIH awards from 1986 to 1990. Thereafter, medical schools in markets with high managed care penetration had slower growth in the dollar amounts and numbers of NIH awards compared with schools in markets with low or medium managed care penetration. This slower growth for schools in high managed care markets was associated with loss of share of NIH awards, equal to $98 million in 1995, and lower institutional ranking by NIH awards. Much of this revenue loss can be explained by the slower growth of R01 awards to clinical departments in medical schools in high managed care markets. These findings provide evidence of an inverse relationship between growth in NIH awards during the past decade and managed care penetration among US medical schools. Whether this association is causal remains to be determined.

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH AWARDS TO INSTITUTIONS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES, 1976 - 85

Foreign institutions are eligible for grants from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) for biomedical research. Applications undergo a two-tier process of peer review. Most applications are approved and about a third succeed in obtaining funding. Each year the NIH awards about 300 research grants and contracts to foreign institutions and supports another 100 international research fellows. In the fiscal year 1984, the NIH spent about $35 million on these awards—about half the amount that it spent on international activities.