1. Potential Solutions to Fix the NIH Federal Funding Crisis
Sam George, Malachi Zeitner, Elaine Koberlein, Alex Waldherr Mentor: Dr. Michael Crowder
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Hughes Hall
Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056
Introduction:
Investing around $32.3 billion yearly into medical
research operating on a federal budget, around 80% of
the NIH’s funding is awarded through grants to
competitive researchers. Grants to be funded are
reviewed by study sections that specialize in a general
scientific area and are managed by a Scientific Review
Officer (SRO). The SRO from each section is responsible
for selecting panel members who have understanding of
the review process, high publishing records of research
experience, and have been awarded major grants.
Between 1998 and 2003, the NIH budget was doubled
allowing for federal funding to increase. However,
during the doubling of the budget, the number of grants
being awarded to the top 100 institutions in 1998 was
92% and was the same in 2003, meaning more money
ultimately meant more money to fund the same elite
institutions. After doubling the budget, there was more
money to fund grants, but less were being funded
because ultimately, the money was going to the same
reseachers and schools, decreasing the sucess rates. An
analysis of biographical data for the reviewers that sit
on these committees to review grants may indicate that
a disproportionate amount of reviewers have
connections to the top 50 funded schools in the country.
This might have the possibility of skewing funding to
researchers from top 50 funded schools creating a
continuing bias towards them, and leaving new
researchers and smaller schools out to dry.
Figure 1. Representation of the success rate crises,
showing the decrease since the doubling of the budget.
Results:
Figure 2: Comparison of 2 Top 50 schools vs 2 Non-Top 50
schools average H-index of employed PIs.
Figure 3. Analysis of % of R01 and R15 grants funded to Top
50 schools from 6 study sections. Grant funding years were
from 2015-present.
Conclusions:
We found that NIH scientific review panels seem to have a
disproportionate amount of reviewers who are employed by or
connected to schools that are in the Top 50 for NIH funding
received. We believe that this has a significant impact, shown by
how much funding is going toward Top 50 schools as opposed to
the 2450+ other schools that submit funding proposals.
Some proposed solutions to improve the funding process are the
following:
- Multi-stage review of funding proposals:
- First round: the PI and PI employer institution removed.
Score assigned based on scientific merit of the proposal.
Intended to eliminate institutional bias in the selection
process.
- Second round: PI and instiution are revealed. Scrutiny of the
PI’s grant history and current grants in place are subject to
review.
- Make the review sessions of funding proposals and summaries
public domain to hold scientific review panels accountable.
- Regulate indirect cost that institutions get to spend when a PI
that the institution employs receives NIH funding. This would
eliminate wasteful spending and free up more money to be used
on funding proposals.
- Have scientific review panels comment on the requested
funding amount. The experts on a panel would be the most
knowledgable of when a PI is requesting more than what is
necessary to conduct proposed research.
- Institute term limits on panelists and rotate SROs around study
sections to eliminate the chance of bias permeating the review
process.
Ideas for future research include:
- Comparison of funding effectiveness in the National Institute of
General Medical Sciences and other Institutes within the NIH,
since the implementation of new procedures by Dr. Jon Lorsch.
- Examine in greater depth to what extent a correlation exists
between H-Index and RO1 proposal success.
References:
Philippidis, A. The Top 50 NIH-Funded Universities of 2014. GEN, http://www.genengnews.com/insight-
and-intelligence/the-top-50-nih-funded-universities-of-2014/77900233/?page=1 (accessed Apr 18, 2015).
Rocky, S. NIH Extramural Nexus. NIH Extramural Nexus, http://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2015/06/29/what-
are-the-chances-of-getting-funded/ (accessed Apr 20, 2016).
Methods:
Current meeting rosters of 25 NIH study sections were
collected. Current employer, educational history and # of RO1
and R15 grants, and # of publications for each
researcher were recorded. The distrubition of RO1 vs. R15
grants for 6 study sections (MSFA, BBM, ACE, GCAT, ACTS,
NANO) from 2015-present were analyzed
Two Top 50 funded and two non-Top 50 funded schools were
chosen for H Index evaluation. The H Index from 2002-present
for each researcher sitting on a panel was calculated and
averaged for each institution.