# Presentation: 917900

## NIH Extramural Support forNew InvestigatorsNational Academy of Sciences16 June 2004

- Norka Ruiz Bravo, PhD
- Deputy Director for Extramural Research
- National Institutes of Health

## All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts,...”

**Notes:**
...”And then the lover, Sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.  
Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth.  
And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part.  
The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound.”
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Focus for today -- on the Southeast quadrant of the circle – the postdoc to faculty member transition
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History: what has been and what is? 
Activism: what are we doing to make a difference?
Future: what should we do?

## The Stage: New investigators compete for ~ a 25% share of the NIH pie

**Notes:**
OK – so what’s the story?
The story is that it’s a tough world out there:
3⁄4 of the NIH budget is tied up in commitments (non-competing grants)
So, new investigators have to compete, along w/ experienced investigators for about a 25% share of the NIH pie.

BUT there is some good news – NEXT slide:

## Younger investigators have higher T1 success rates than older investigators

**Notes:**
When new investigators compete for new applications, they do very well 
In non-NIH speak, this means that the younger applicants are more successful at competing for new R01 grants than their experienced colleagues.
The reason for this – could be a number of things, including that they get some breaks at review and funding that I will talk about later

BUT there are some flies in the ointment – NEXT slide -

## First major independent research support occurs at later age

**Notes:**
Average age for first R01 is now 42 for PhDs, and 44 for MDs and MD/PhDs

IN fact, this age creep is troublesome from the point of view that we of course want those new creative ideas to enter the system as early as possible.

The age creep is related to the data in the NEXT slide - 

## First faculty appointment occurs at a later age

**Notes:**
First faculty appointments regardless of degree are also occurring at a later age.

As an aside:
One of the questions that was asked is how long does it take for an investigator to get his/her first R01?
By inference from this and the previous slides it looks like four years for PhDs – the difference between the age at first faculty appointment and the age of first R01 grant award.

SO, what is NIH doing about this issue?  NEXT slide - 

## Activism: what have we done/are doing to make a difference?

- Self designation of new investigator status
- Special treatment at time of review
- Special treatment at time of funding decisions
- Programs targeting new investigators
- [New Investigator Research Award (R23)]
- [FIRST Award (R29)]
- R03
- R21
- K Awards

**Notes:**
Checkbox on face page of the application.
Review – get break with respect to expectations for preliminary data
Funding – get break from ICs – different ways
Differential payline 
5 years of support
Opportunity to address weaknesses and if successful are funded
R23 and R29 – now defunct – reason was that they were limited with respect to time (R23) and $$ (R23 and R29).  Combination of time commitment required and relatively small size precluded PIs from ‘growing’ by applying for additional support.

R03 – pilot or feasibility studies; small self-contained studies; $50K dc/year x 2yrs

R21 – support for early stages of exploratory and developmental research projects; feasibility studies; $275K dc total in 1-2 yrs (no more than $200K in any single yr)

K awards – career development for individuals w/ a research doctorate or health professional doctorate; come in a variety of flavors; some are mentored; all required significant commitment of time; K22 seems to be a favorite – provides support to an individual postdoctoral fellow in transition to a faculty position. 

## What effect have our interventions had?

**Notes:**
Have we made a difference?  
New investigators are competing for same ~25% of the research budget that the experienced investigators compete for – and the competition is tough.

## New investigators have increaseduse of R21s

## Prior support through career (K) awards, R03, R21 confers some advantage in future funding

**Notes:**
CAVEAT = under the current definition of new investigator, applicants who have had an R03 or R21 can still check the box as a new investigator – and therefore may get some additional advantage.

BUT nevertheless – good news is good news

## Number of new investigators entering and leaving the system - pretty steady until doubling

**Notes:**
For the egress data, we stopped w/ 1998 because our measure for someone “egressing” – leaving the system = five years w/out showing up as a PI.  

No way to know what the egress curve will do until it does it of course, but I suspect that the number of PIs exiting the system will not have increased in that time.  We would need to check to see that total number of PIs went up during the doubling.

## New investigators are entering system at higher rate than experienced are leaving it

## The future...

- Questions to consider:
- What is an optimal (or even acceptable) influx/egress rate?  How would we determine it?  How would we achieve it?
- To add additional complexity:
- How should we recognize the important role played by junior investigators who are not officially PIs but make significant contributions to the science?
- Should we broaden definition of new investigator to include R21s?  All RPGs?  Or is R01 the only acceptable measure of “significant independent” research support?

**Notes:**
The hard things are fun – so here are some hard questions for us to ponder.

## “And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.”

**Notes:**
In closing 

Obviously, there are barriers – and we can identify at least some of them fairly easily:

Institutional barriers
Typically, independent research support applications from postdocs are not allowed
Faculty appointments occur later in life
Training period has lengthened

And there are reasons for the barriers – and then finding ways to address them.  I am very much looking forward to learning from this meeting.