Increasing R01 Competition Concerns Researchers

Extract

Percolating concern over tight funding for individual cancer researchers repeatedly burst to the surface this summer at scientific conferences, advisory board meetings, and other venues, where leading researchers voiced their worries.

“The problem now, with budgets being as tight as they are, is that smaller and smaller percentages of grants are being funded,” said Richard Schilsky, M.D., professor of medicine and associate dean for clinical research at the University of Chicago Hospitals. “Established researchers as well as young researchers are feeling a pinch.”

Such concerns prompted National Institutes of Health Director Elias Zerhouni, M.D., to tell researchers to “stay calm, cool, and understand the facts.” Speaking at the June 14 meeting of the National Cancer Advisory Board, Zerhouni said, “We still have a very large budget to sustain biomedical research, and I think we will prevail.”

In the area of greatest concern—individual researcher grants, called R01s—nearly three-quarters of researchers who apply to NIH do not prevail. In 2005, just 27.6% of applicants for R01 grants received funding, down from 35% in 2000. At the National Cancer Institute, the success rate in 2004 was slightly farther down, just 25%. Because researchers sometimes apply for two, three, or even four grants, the NIH success rate per grant application is even lower, 22.3%.