NIH Research Grants: Funding and Re-funding
- T. V. Rajan, MD, PhD;
- Jonathan Clive, PhD
To the Editor: National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants play an important role in the careers of the research faculty in medical schools. Given the importance of NIH funding in an academic career, we sought to determine several aspects of NIH funding that have, to the best of our knowledge, not been examined in detail. These are (1) the median length of time of NIH funding during the academic life of an individual, (2) the predictive value, for long-term funding, of receiving NIH funding at any given time, and (3) the effect of length of the unfunded period on the likelihood that an investigator will be subsequently funded.
Methods
We obtained the funding histories of individuals who were awarded any NIH grants in the index years 1972 and 1982, and tracked individual funding histories for 25 years and 15 years, respectively. Data consisted of the number of grants each individual received annually following the index year. A total of 1707 individuals received awards in 1972 and 1639 in 1982. Because of the nature of record keeping at the NIH, the precise length of each award was not available. Based on the historical experience of NIH funding, we assumed that the average length of an NIH award is 4 years.
Results
The mean number of awards obtained by individuals throughout their careers was 2.5 for the 1972 and 3.3 for the 1982 cohort; the median for both groups was 2.0. About 40% of individuals who obtain an NIH grant never received another for the rest of their careers.
The best predictor of future funding appears to be the number of grants garnered during a 10-year period. Thus, for both the 1972 and 1982 cohorts, we computed the proportion of individuals obtaining l, 2, or more than 2 awards over a 10-year period from 1972 to 1981 or 1982 to 1991, respectively. The distribution of the individuals into these 3 categories was similar in the 2 cohorts: 39.0% vs 35.0%, 18.3% vs 22.0%, and 42.4% vs 42.0%, respectively. For individuals who only obtained 1 grant for the 10-year period (1972-1981 or 1982-1991), 92.5% and 93%, respectively, did not obtain any funding for the subsequent period until 1997. Of those who received 1 additional grant (or a total of 2 grants for the 10-year period), 72% did not obtain any subsequent funding until 1997. These 2 cohorts were in contrast with those who obtained more than 2 grants for the 10-year interval. Only 27% of these individuals failed to obtain a grant for the subsequent period.
Comment
The cumulative period of NIH funding appears to be rather brief for most individuals. Neither the possession of an NIH grant nor the apparent ability to acquire one based on prior research training or history predicts whether an individual will receive future grants.
