Author: Tony Moore

We recently posted our financial management plan for Fiscal Year 2014 (no longer available) and a budget table showing our Fiscal Year 2014 operating plan by mechanism (no longer available). Consistent with our emphasis on bolstering our commitment to investigator-initiated research, we’re making every effort to move financial resources into research project grants (RPGs), which include R00s, R01s, R15s, R21s, R37s, P01s, DP1s, DP2s and U01s.

We estimate that these efforts will increase our RPG success rate from 19.9% in Fiscal Year 2013 to more than 22% in Fiscal Year 2014. This translates into funding about 100 more competing RPGs than we did in Fiscal Year 2013.

NIGMS’ plan aligns with NIH’s policies and includes these key elements:

• We will fund noncompeting RPGs at the committed levels. We will restore those already funded at 90% to the committed levels.
• The overall average cost of competing RPGs will be at approximately 2% above the Fiscal Year 2013 level.
• We will fund noncompeting IDeA and AIDS research centers, which have required budget levels or a specific mandated policy, at the committed levels.
• We will reduce other P41, P50 and U54 noncompeting awards by 10% from the committed levels. We will revise those already funded at levels below 90% accordingly. Future funding levels for these center mechanisms will depend on the Institute’s budget and efforts to increase support for our investigator-initiated RPG pool.
• We will reduce by approximately 50% the funds set aside for new and competing research center awards in response to the targeted funding opportunity announcements we issued recently:
  • Modeling of Infectious Disease Agent Study Centers of Excellence (U54)
  • Research Networks for Macromolecular Interactions in Cells (U54)
  • NIGMS National Centers for Systems Biology (P50)
  • Research Centers in Injury and Peri-operative Sciences (P50)
• We will increase Ruth L. Kirschstein undergraduate and graduate student stipends by 2%. Entry-level postdoctoral stipends will increase to $42,000, with 4% increases between the years of experience levels. See NOT-OD-14-046 for the full range of Fiscal Year 2014 stipends.
• We will continue to support new investigators on R01-equivalent awards at success rates comparable to or better than those of established investigators submitting new (Type 1) R01-equivalent applications.

Looking ahead to Fiscal Year 2015, you can find information about the President’s budget request for NIH and read the NIGMS Fiscal Year 2015 budget justification to learn more about the specifics of the proposed budget for our Institute.