NIGMS maintains a diverse biomedical research portfolio, supporting a wide range of topics and investigators. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, NIGMS received a congressional appropriation of $2,991,417,000. As part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, this budget increased by 3.4% to $3,092,373,000 for FY 2022. The majority of these funds support research project grants (RPGs) at research institutions throughout the country. In alignment with its commitment to transparency, NIGMS publishes data on annual trends in its grants portfolio. In this post, we first describe investigator-level trends for RPGs, then review the trends associated with competing RPGs, and lastly examine trends in the Institute’s Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) program.
Continue reading “Application and Funding Trends in Fiscal Year 2021”Tag: Funding Outcomes
NIGMS Training Application and Funding Trends: Individual NRSA Postdoc and Pathway to Independence Awards
Our Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity (TWD) supports programs at multiple career stages to foster the development of a strong and diverse biomedical research workforce. This post is the first in a series focused on data from NIGMS training programs and is similar to the ones we have done for our research project grant portfolio. Below, we examine trends in NIGMS applications and awards for the Individual Postdoctoral National Research Service Award (NRSA) (F32) and Pathway to Independence Award (K99) programs. NIGMS also supports institutional postdoctoral awards that include the Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards (IRACDA) (K12) and NRSA Institutional Postdoctoral Training Grants (T32) focused in clinical areas, and data on these programs were shared previously.
Continue reading “NIGMS Training Application and Funding Trends: Individual NRSA Postdoc and Pathway to Independence Awards”Funding Trends: MIRA Applications and Overall Impact Scores
One of the most common questions we receive about the Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) program is the likelihood of an application’s funding given a certain overall impact score.
Frequent readers of this blog may note that we typically provide statistics as they relate to our R01 portfolio, but we’ve yet to provide a similar “funding curve” for the MIRA program. One reason that MIRA applications haven’t been included in these analyses is that, unlike most R01 applications, MIRA R35 applications don’t receive a percentile score. The percentile score allows for normalization of overall impact scores across study sections to account for any differences in scoring behavior that are observed in review panels. See the Office of Extramural Research’s comprehensive blog post for more information about overall impact scores and percentiles.
Continue reading “Funding Trends: MIRA Applications and Overall Impact Scores”Application, Review, Funding, and Demographic Trends for Maximizing Investigators’ Research Awards (MIRA): FY 2016-2018
NIGMS has made MIRA awards to Established Investigators (EI) and Early-Stage Investigators (ESI) for three full Fiscal Years (FY). In this Feedback Loop post, we provide an analysis of application, review, funding, and demographic trends for the MIRA program.
For the first two rounds of EI MIRAs, eligibility was limited to well-funded NIGMS investigators: PIs with two or more NIGMS R01-equivalent awards or one NIGMS R01-equivalent award for >$400,000 in direct costs. For the FY 2018 EI competition and beyond, eligibility was expanded to include any investigator with a single PD/PI NIGMS R01-equivalent that is up for renewal. For the FY 2016 ESI MIRA competition, ESIs and New Investigators (NI) at the assistant professor or equivalent level were eligible, whereas eligibility was restricted to ESIs in subsequent rounds. As always, a PI can apply for an extension of ESI status for various life and career events, including childbirth.
Continue reading “Application, Review, Funding, and Demographic Trends for Maximizing Investigators’ Research Awards (MIRA): FY 2016-2018”Encouraging News for Women Entering Academia in the Biomedical Sciences
A recent analysis by NIGMS staff has uncovered some promising results for women entering academic positions in the biomedical sciences. The study, which published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that once men and women receive their first major NIH grant, their funding longevity is similar. The data contradict the common assumption that, across all career stages, women are at a large disadvantage compared to men.
The results of the analysis should be encouraging for women interested in becoming independent investigators, since the likelihood of sustaining NIH grant support may be better than commonly perceived. You can read the full study, “NIH Funding Longevity by Gender,” in the current edition of PNAS.