I’ve been away in our nation’s capital to serve on a review panel for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). I have sat on a few of these over the years, and each time I come away more impressed with the dedication and intelligence of my colleagues. Both those that submit the grant proposals and those that review them.
This is not a great time to be a scientist that is dependent on NIH to support your research. During the Clinton years, NIH’s budget was doubled. During the Bush administration, their budget has either been incrementally increased or cut. (I’ll deal with this issue in another post sometime in the future). What this means is that in the “good old days,” the top 20% of grants would have a chance of being funded. Now, most NIH institutes are funding grants that score in the top 8-10% or those submitted. That means that when a review panel is faced with, let’s say, 40 grants, they approach their review knowing that only 4 are going to be funded. That means that there are going to be 36 principal investigators (PIs) who are going to be, at best, disappointed, and at worst, closing their labs.
Having served on review panels in both the good and bad times, it has been instructive to see how the tenor of the meetings have changed. When you submit a grant, you have three tries to get it funded—the initial review and two resubmissions. So in the old days, there seemed to be less urgency with the reviews of good but not outstanding proposals. We would provide a review that made clear where the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal were, and trusted that the PI would revise and and would get into the fundable range the next go around. Now, there is no guarantee that revising a grant according to the review panel is going to be good enough to get into a range that will be fundable. The sad fact is that there are many outstanding proposals that won’t quite make it in this new reality. So as reviewers (and as PIs ourselves who have been on the other side), we now work very carefully to make certain that the very best grants are scored appropriately high, and that those that are close are given clear feedback as to how to restructure their resubmission.
Yes, the system is far from perfect. In fact, the NIH recently released a white paper outlining some pretty dramatic changes in peer review. But given the constraints, I am comforted and heartened by the intellect and sincere approach taken by those serving on these panels.
Just remind me of these kind words when I get back the summary statement from the panel that reviews my next grant.
Now if only us taxpayers could also have a say in how our funds are spent. Having academics who study the effects of butterfly wings flapping on global climate change aren’t the sort of folks the Average Joe wants determining what’s worth researching. Especially in a recession.
Left by Warren Pease on March 15th, 2008