Internal grant review to increase grant funding for junior investigators

Funding

aJHU IGRP success rate was determined by dividing the number of awarded applications by the total number of applications that completed the IGRP process, across fiscal years. NIH success rates were determined by dividing the number of competing applications awarded by the total number of competing applications reviewed within a fiscal year.9 bRefers to fiscal year 2016. Rates for NINDS are shown for comparison because most of our department’s applications are funded by NINDS. CDA 5 Career Development Award; IGRP 5 internal grant review program; JHU 5 Johns Hopkins University; NINDS 5 National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the world’s largest funding source for biomedical research. Between 2003 and 2015, however, NIH’s ability to fund investigators has declined by 22%, as a combined result of budget cuts, sequestration, and unmatched inflationary losses.1 The latest figures indicate a 19.9% success rate for all submitted NIH research grant applications and 25.9% for individual training grants (fiscal year 2016).2 Compared with 2003, when the success rates for all submitted grant applications and individual training grants were 32% and 39%, respectively, this declining funding rate has made it increasingly difficult for both clinical and basic science investigators to launch academic research careers. Junior faculty are particularly vulnerable, and low success rates for grant funding are driving talented scientists to careers outside academia.3 A recent Chronicle survey indicated that ~50% of the >11,000 university researchers had abandoned a central investigation in their laboratory, and 75% lost graduate students and research fellows due to cuts in funding. The long-term effects of fewer students and fellows entering into training will manifest as reductions in the next generation of biomedical scientists.4Moreover, the age of new investigators awarded their first R01-equivalent grant continues to rise, with 2016 estimates at 45 years old for MD/PhDs and MDs, and 42 years old for PhDs.5 Without funding in the early years of their careers, young scientists are at risk of moving from the academic setting to careers outside of biomedical research, or out of science altogether. Funding was received from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (5K23DC013569, M.B.B.).