Zerhouni Explains it All in Science Magazine

Hopefully all of our SPIN readers have seen NIH Director Elias Zerhouni's commentary in Science magazine published on November 17, 2006. Because what he says is so important, we are excerpting part of it here. Bottom line—yes, it is harder to get funded at NIH these days due to the increase in applications and tightening budget, but many opportunities remain.

"Many scientists are dismayed that it is more difficult to get funded today than it was before the NIH budget doubled. What can explain this apparent paradox? The core reason is the increase in the number of new applications and applicants for NIH grants (see second figure). In 1998, NIH received 24,151 applications for new and competing research project grants (RPGs) (1); NIH expects to receive over 46,000 in 2006 and over 49,000 in 2007. The doubling in the demand for grants is primarily due to a large increase in the number of new scientists applying for grants. In 1998, there were about 19,000 scientists applying for competing awards. In 2006, NIH expects to receive applications from approximately 34,000 scientists and forecasts that over 36,000 scientists will apply in 2007. Remarkably, the largest surge in demand for grants occurred at the end of the doubling period and continues today. This "perfect storm"--the imbalance between supply and demand for grants--is the fundamental reason for the painful circumstances in which we find ourselves.

"The principal cause of this remarkable growth in grant demand is the unprecedented expansion of research capacity across the country that began in 1999. Stimulated by successive administrations' and Congress's calling for more research on emerging health issues, academic institutions responded. Using philanthropic, local, and state resources, as well as loans, they expanded the scientific infrastructure and workforce to address the growing scope and complexity of our scientific challenges. For example, the American Association of Medical Colleges projects that an estimated $15 billion have been committed to new research facilities between 1998 and 2007, compared with $3.2 billion between 1990 and 1997. Allowing for the lag time necessary to build facilities and train scientists, this expansion is now being felt in the form of a rapid surge in applications. It should not go without mentioning, however, that this increased investment by our research institutions is resulting in the development of entirely new fields of research, leading to an acceleration of the pace of promising research advances across the entire spectrum of the biomedical and behavioral sciences. This is just what the nation wants and needs.

"Unfortunately, our ability to sustain this expanded research enterprise is now at risk. Some of the tension is due to inflation. Since 1998, the average size of RPGs grew by about 40%, and NIH budgets have not kept pace with biomedical research and development inflation since 2003 (2).

"Increased demand, inflation effects, and flat budgets are the main drivers of today's challenges. It has been suggested that decreased success rates are the result of NIH's excessively shifting its emphasis to applied research and clinical trials through large solicitations and projects at the expense of unsolicited, investigator-initiated basic research. This is simply not the case. In 1998, 54% of the total budget of NIH was dedicated to basic research, 40% to applied research (including clinical trials), and 6% to infrastructure programs. Funding for basic science is currently above 55% and is slated to grow beyond 56% in 2007; at which point, applied research will reach 41%, and 3% will be devoted to infrastructure needs.

"NIH embraces the importance of investigator-initiated research. We are firmly committed to independent grant mechanisms such as the unsolicited R01. Although the absolute number of requests for applications (RFAs) (3) grew during the early part of the doubling, their proportion relative to the NIH budget decreased since the doubling ended. Today, 91% of funded RPGs are unsolicited, compared with 88% in 2003, and 92% in 1998. Of our extramural grants budget, 78% remains dedicated to RPGs (4) as compared with 81% in 1998. The difference is primarily due to growth in centers and contract mechanisms to address emerging public health priorities.

"It has also been suggested that the NIH Roadmap (5) is a major cause of reduced success rates. In fact, the Roadmap represents only 1.2% of the fiscal year (FY) 2006 NIH budget. The science within the Roadmap is peer-reviewed and very competitive. It is not a monolithic program, but rather supports over 345 principal investigators at 133 extramural institutions through a variety of mechanisms, including R01s. It does not significantly affect overall success rates. The planned Roadmap budget represents a balanced portfolio, with 40% going to basic research; 40% to clinical and translational research; and 20% to interdisciplinary and high-risk research, such as the Pioneer awards.

"...We need to remain focused on our core values and to pursue our fundamental mission of discovery--translating new knowledge into tangible benefits for the American people. This must remain our top priority. This means maintaining, to the greatest extent possible, the ability of scientists at all stages of their careers to continue their work.

"Preserving future generations of scientists. Like farmers during difficult times, we should not "eat our seed corn," but protect it. To accomplish this, we have implemented three specific strategies to encourage and support junior scientists and new investigators: (i) Every institute and center is working to ensure that the success rates of new investigators are not disproportionately affected by flat budgets, through various mechanisms such as differential pay line considerations. (ii) Because new investigators may not have the resources to sustain long peer review cycles, they now receive their critiques within 1 week of review and can apply up to 3 weeks beyond the next receipt date. This dramatically decreases the length of the application review cycle without compromising the rigor of peer review. (iii) Outstanding new investigators still in postdoctoral training may now apply to the Pathway to Independence awards program launched in 2006 (6). It will fund 150 to 200 postdoctoral candidates for each of the next 5 years. These scientists will receive up to 2 years of mentored training support, followed by 3 years of R01-level funding, contingent upon securing a tenure-track position with appropriate institutional support and resources. This strategy is designed to retain promising scientists and to give them the opportunity for independent research at an earlier stage of their career. Some institutes and centers are looking to expand this and other pilot programs in the future.

"Balancing supply and demand. NIH spends more on funding grants today than ever before, but over 80% of its budget is committed to ongoing projects. In any given year, the only resources available for new grants are those that come from ending projects that started 4 to 5 years before, plus any new increase in the overall budget. Our large commitment base, the unexpected budgetary impact of hurricane Katrina, the fact that in 2006 the only funds available were those freed up from grants started when the NIH budget had not reached its peak, along with the growing number of applications, compounded our difficulties. To alleviate the strain, we made the hard decision to reduce the committed budget of existing awards by 2.35% for 2006, freeing up some resources for new and competing awards. In the coming years, as we recycle funds from the higher funding years of 2003 to 2005, more uncommitted funds will become available, and thus more new and competing RPGs can be awarded.

"Although strategic priority setting and careful management of these recycled funds will help stabilize success rates, they will not be sufficient to satisfy the much larger demand for grant funding, if the budget remains flat and inflation continues to erode our purchasing power. While these potential solutions will have an impact on NIH as a whole, we recognize that neither the problems nor the solutions fit every institute and center. This is why we asked each institute and center to adjust its overall portfolio to preserve individual success rates to the extent possible. The difficult decisions that these adjustments require are made in consultation with institutes' and centers' outside scientific advisory councils.

"At the NIH level, we are also redirecting priorities. The intramural program, NIH administrative costs, and infrastructure expenses are being kept well below inflation. Given the current environment, Roadmap budgets are also reduced, and no new initiative within the Roadmap can be undertaken unless it fits within the budget agreed to by all the institute and center directors. This means that for the foreseeable future, new Roadmap initiatives can only begin as other Roadmap initiatives conclude.

"Improving peer review. Exacerbating current frustrations for investigators and reviewers is the burden associated with the submission of even more grant applications by applicants seeking to improve their chances of success. In 2006, success rates per application fell to about 20%, while the funding rate for applicants was higher at about 25% (7). This is due, in part, to the fact that we now receive on average 1.4 applications per applicant, compared with 1.2 before 2003. NIH is reevaluating its review system to reduce the length of the review cycle for all applicants, shorten grant applications, reduce unnecessarily burdensome procedures, and further improve the quality of our peer-review system.

"...Defining a compelling vision for the future. Continued support for NIH will not be based on past performance, but on a shared and compelling vision for a future that serves the fundamental needs of our society. Today, health-care costs are rising at an unsustainable rate. Scientists need to be an intrinsic part of the solution to this problem. Marginal reform of how health care is delivered will not suffice. We need to radically change what is being delivered. There is an urgent need to transform health and medicine from the curative and onerous paradigm of today to the vision of a more predictive, personalized, and preemptive world of health care. The only hope to do so is to further our fundamental understanding of biology and behavior through sustained scientific discovery..."

To view the original article, visit www.nih.gov/about/director/index.htm and click on "Research Funding: NIH in the Post-Doubling Era: Realities and Strategies" under "What's New" in the right-hand column.
Science 17 November 2006: Vol. 314. no. 5802, pp. 1088 - 1090 DOI: 10.1126/science.1136931

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