Statement from the American Psychological Association
Presented by Dr. Merry Bullock
Associate Executive Director of Science

The APA’s mission is to foster psychology as a science, a practice, and a means of promoting health and human welfare. Of the APA’s 155,000 members and affiliates, some 25,000 are scientists and academics for whom issues of research infrastructure and funding are especially important.

Psychological scientists are represented in the research portfolios of most of the NIH institutes and centers. Psychologists conduct basic, applied, and clinical research—some, strictly within the tradition of their specialties and others as part of multidisciplinary teams. Basic psychological research on topics such as child development, learning, memory, and sensory perception is funded by several institutes including NCI, NIMH, NIDA and NEI. Translational and clinical research is funded by many institutes, including NIDDK, NIAAA and NHLBI. NIH is the largest federal supporter of psychological research.

We appreciate the committee’s efforts to delineate the structures and contexts within which research can be most productive. Form should follow function, of course: the mechanism of funding should serve the science, and not the reverse. This committee’s work can help reassure all of the constituent NIH scientists and consumers that it’s possible and even desirable, to modify a product that works well in order to make it work better.

The hallmark of NIH-funded research is excellence, and we begin with the premise that NIH needs multiple ways to foster excellence. Sometimes science is best served when its caretakers merely recognize excellence in a grant proposal and let it flourish unencumbered. Sometimes a measure of coordination, whether directed by NIH, scientists in the field, or even Congress, sparks new conversations and connections and adds value and company to a good idea.

A discussion of the center mechanism among scientists – at least, our scientists-- is like a discussion of the State of the Union address. We can expect to hear logic mingled with partisanship. Some scientists believe that Centers are essential for building the scientific infrastructure and collaborations that are necessary to solve the challenges of the 21^st Century in health and well being; Others scientists have deep concerns about the center mechanisms, for a variety of reasons that this committee has heard or will hear.

There are a number of the perceived strengths of centers expressed by behavioral scientists. These include:

• Centers provide a scientific context for bringing investigators together to work on problems of common interest.
  
  
• the center environment forces participating scientists to think about how their work can be integrated, and promotes group efforts that benefit from the synergy of these types of collaborations.

• The multiple scientists and representation of diverse disciplines working on a common theme can provide unparalleled opportunities for both depth and breadth of training in an area at the pre- and postdoctoral levels. It is difficult to provide this type of training outside of center environments.

"Center grants almost always have capacity to attract and train post-docs and new graduates so that they are the place that creates the next generation of scientists."

• Centers provide the necessary infrastructure for conducting certain types of interdisciplinary work that might not otherwise get done – be it equipment, data bases, technology, populations, or continuity over time.
  
  
• Centers provide shared facilities that leverage resources across departments
  
  
• When "pilot cores" are included, centers provide opportunities to facilitate the entry of new (both young and senior) investigators into the target area through pilot work under the guidance of investigators more experienced in the area and spawn the next generation of R01s

Value Added

• Critical Resource - Some (not all) centers are genuinely helpful to the field beyond their own scientific contributions. That is, they are not only productive units in their own right but serve as a critical resource for others.
  
  
• Translation from research to practice - NIH has devoted a great deal of energy into speeding the translation of research to practice. One reason that this problem has been so acute is likely an artifact of the R01 system. R01's are intended to provide depth of inquiry into one problem and this one focus means "they are narrow, silo - like and limited in scope ... A basic scientist never has to interact with someone interested in translating the basic knowledge discovered into clinical practice, community dissemination or policy. Center grants do this and they do it well -- stimulating a two way reciprocal interaction between basic and applied science, between disciplines … that can result in new synthesis, breakthrough discoveries and explanation of paradoxes when seen from only one disciplinary perspective. This can … be done with the public, patients and consumers too. This interaction is a win-win for all. "

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Perceived or potential weaknesses of centers include:

• The rich get richer: Grants tend to be awarded to already successful investigators.
  
  
• As is true for any relatively large enterprise, self-perpetuation may become a goal in itself and scientific goals can become secondary to local institutional needs and self-interest.
  
  
• Because of their status and large budgets, the review and award of centers are vulnerable to becoming politicized.

• Many centers fail in their goal to be national resources.
  
  
• There is a perception, among some, that some projects funded in the context of centers would not be funded as R01s. That is, the umbrella of the overall center buffers weaker projects from critical peer review.
  
  
• Some scientists believe that centers take up funding that would be more productively used for R01s—and believe the funds would, in fact, be spent on R01s if centers didn’t exist.

• Reviewers can feel pressure (possibly self-imposed) to prevent negative funding decisions that result in a large loss of support for capable scientists and their staff. It can be difficult to reconstitute a center after funding is lost in a cycle.
  
  
• New centers that conduct clinical trials, prospective research, and other, time-consuming projects are under time pressures, because renewal cycles require competing continuation applications less than 4 years after funding. Such contingencies could foster a bias toward centers conducting many short-duration investigations. This could adversely affect some kinds of psychological research (e.g., those involving prevention or psychotherapy trials, developmental studies).
  
  
• Because of the high cost and time investment from sponsoring institutes, there is often a more intimate relationship between the sponsor and the applicant organization than is typical in RO1s. This could interfere with the objective evaluations of centers.

• Because of institutional complexity, leadership and governance are especially important in centers. Many otherwise capable groups of scientists may lack the critical leadership necessary for the success of the center. Moreover, necessary leadership and governance may be especially difficult to evaluate in applications for new centers

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There are several areas of behavioral research that are particularly well suited to the center mechanism. These are areas that address problems that have complex etiology and or multiple determinants and that benefit from investigation by trans-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary teams.

One example is behavioral research on genetics—specialized knowledge of the complex gene- environment interaction is critical, especially in health and mental health related behaviors.

Another example is those diseases, especially chronic diseases, that affect large numbers of people. Progress requires understanding multiple, interacting low-penetrance genes and a cascade of environmental pathogens, sometimes requiring exposure for decades. If anything has been learned in the 20th century, it is that health and illness are complex – influenced by phenomena from subcellar to societal levels. Trans-disciplinary team approaches are the 21^st century plan of attack.

Or another -- complex behaviors (individual and collective) that account for at least 50 % of the preventable disease burden. These behaviors include tobacco use; obesity; physical activity or lack of it; alcohol and other substance abuse; adherence to best health practices; access to care and health disparities; stress and immune function; risky sexual practices…the list goes on. To study the role of family, neighborhood, community and societal values in determining pockets of prevalence of illness, along with the other behaviors, many scientists would attest that centers, properly constituted and supported, provide practically the only way to have a critical mass of scientists from differing disciplines address a complex problem together.

Without center grants. researchers in lifespan development, epidemiology and other population disciplines would rarely interact with experts on individual differences and more reductionistic cognitive neuroscience and molecular scientists, especially in longitudinal cohort research so essential to understand the pathways from youth to adulthood and aging. Behavioral scientists have long proposed that NIH invest in additional longitudinal research on human development. While R01 research on aspects of development is vitally important, the center mechanism is more desirable to help integrate the varied expertise needed to manage such research over the long term.

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Here are some typical comments about centers from our members:

Some are positive:

"Centers provide much more stimulus for collaboration; resources to integrate new investigators into the field, a leadership platform on a given theme… they are also an important mechanism for universities to invest their own resources… It is the hope that by providing resources that cross the usual departmental boundaries.. we can increase the quality of science as well as interest our colleagues in other areas…"

"…centers have been extremely productive and have spun off a large number of RO1's by more junior investigators... the infrastructure has produced core facilities used by multiple centers... It would be impossible to carry out the large scale, interdisciplinary, sophisticated studies … without an appropriate center grant mechanism. It would be difficult for junior investigators to progress as rapidly to conduct sophisticated, multi-disciplinary R01 research without the infrastructure provided by centers. "

And some are negative:

"I agree with the widely held view that the science produced by "Centers" tends toward mediocrity, since strong PIs heading up the projects usually do good work but it's very difficult in practice to focus and coordinate scientists working within these Centers and the science spins out of control. Thus, projects that would not be funded under ordinary circumstances are funded under the umbrella of a Center grant."

"I have very negative views of funding centers. Most of us who have participated in them know that the center mechanism tends to support a lot of mediocre science…"

We had very little data to offer our scientists that would confirm or refute the anecdotal concerns raised about centers, a point to which I will return later.

No doubt this committee is going to give serious consideration to why centers elicit such a bad rap in parts of the scientific community. Examining the disparate views of our scientists, we at APA wondered if the political element present at the birth of some centers may help poison the well. After all, to paraphrase, some ideas are born in centers, some ideas achieve centers, and some ideas have centers thrust upon them. It’s a positive sign that some in Congress are looking for guidance from this committee about the circumstances under which centers ought to be created, and not created.

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When we asked our scientists to contribute comments for this testimony, we received a range of opinions about centers. Several themes were clear, though, from the center partisans and the center detractors. First: even with the convergences that centers can facilitate, investigator-initiated research is still at the heart of NIH. It may be losing a little ‘market share,’ but the NIH emphasis on investigator-initiated research is still appropriate.

Second, developing a strong primary disciplinary perspective remains a critical need for health scientists. The training facilitated by centers is one of that mechanism’s most important strengths, but our members want the multidisciplinary perspectives to follow, not supercede, disciplinary training.

We received several recommendations to strengthen the research continuum from R01s to centers.

• First, one way centers can falter or fail is through poor administrative skills of the center director. The aspect of center management deserves more careful consideration by this committee. How can NIH facilitate the good administration of centers? One way is to develop a training module or training recommendations for center directors—another is to orient study sections to review the administrative components of centers as thoroughly as the scientific components.
  
  
• Another is to increase NIH oversight of center grants. Because the Research Management and Support line of the NIH budget has been so stressed in the past few years, site visits to centers are much less common than in the past. It may be that centers still receive more oversight than R01 grants—however, because centers are larger and more expensive and complex, the oversight is warranted.
  
  
• It is a big leap, philosophically and administratively, from an R01 to a center grant. There aren’t ‘in-between’ grant mechanisms that could help R01 grantees transition from administering their own project to working more cooperatively with several projects—and some university departments encourage more collaboration than others. The concept of an R01-Plus is worth investigating. Perhaps R01 investigators could also apply for "core" grants that are normally part of centers. This would allow investigators to develop administrative and collaborative experience among scientists at their own institutions or among scientists at remote locations.
  
  
• Last: provide mechanisms for better evaluation of centers – in particular, increase the data available about center grants. How many scientists are trained via center grants? Are their career trajectories different than scientists trained via other mechanisms? What is the mix in the allocation of resources between centers and individual investigator projects. Is there any truth to the accusation that centers help the "rich get richer?"

We thank the committee for allowing time for associations like APA to share our concerns. APA and our members would be glad to provide additional information or consultation if you’d like.

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The APA Science Directorate and Public Policy Office acknowledge the expertise of several members who shared their thoughts and views, and perceptions of others’ thoughts and views. These are, first, Ken Sher, Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia, whose name should go above the title; David Abrams, Ph.D., Brown University; David Barlow, Ph.D., Boston University; Linda Bartoshuk, Ph.D., Yale University; Karen Matthews, Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Nora Newcombe, Ph.D., Temple University; Denise Park, Ph.D. University of Illinois; Neil Schneiderman, Ph.D. University of Miami School of Medicine; Ed Wasserman, Ph.D. University of Iowa; and APA Staff Norman Anderson, Ph.D. Kurt Salzinger, Ph.D. , Merry Bullock, Ph.D., Geoff Mumford, Ph.D., and Patricia Kobor.

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