What’s happening to the new investigator?

Investment in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has paid significant dividends to the American people, as NIH Director Elias Zerhouni noted in his testimony before Congress this spring (1). While the benefits to date have been impressive, the most dramatic and valuable returns on our investment are yet to come. However, a potential stumbling block to our continued success and international leadership is our inability to ensure that a new generation of scientists has the resources needed to carry on the work that has already been started. While scientific opportunities have never been greater and the numbers of grant applications has been rising steadily, success rates for R01 applications from new investigators have dropped to a new low of 16.8% in 2004. If other indicators are used, for example “paylines” (the cutoff score in any one review cycle), then the chance of being funded on any given grant application may be well below 10%. This is an alarming deterrent for any young person considering a career in biomedical research. Prospects for correcting or reversing this situation are shrinking. Inflation is eroding the purchasing power of the flat NIH budgets, and competition among experienced investigators is at an all-time high. Without funding increases in FY2006, conditions will become even worse. It is hard to measure opportunity in science or to assess its change over time. But one indicator that can be quantified is the number of applications for research grants. Applications for NIH Research Project Grants (RPGs) rose from 25,224 in 1995 to 34,710 in 2003, the final year of the five year doubling of the NIH budget (2). In 2004 and 2005, NIH’s budget remained flat while scientific opportunities in biomedicine continued to increase. By 2004 and 2005, the number of RPG applications rose to 43,069, an increase of 24% over a two year period. As a result of “no-growth” budgets and obligations to ongoing projects and programs, however, NIH was able to fund fewer new grants during these two years, and overall success rates fell from 29.9% in 2003 to 22.3% in 2005. Scientific opportunities have continued to expand, but funding opportunities at NIH have not. This situation is especially hard on investigators beginning their research careers. While they are the most critical component of our continued leadership in science and innovation, they are the most vulnerable group when it comes to fluctuations and downturns in funding. They may encounter more lucrative career options in other fields of endeavor and, in many cases, options for scientific careers in other nations. As a result, their career choices are very sensitive to research funding opportunities. Many have made and will continue to make sacrifices for the chance to work in science, but as the barriers to research careers grow higher these altruistic decisions are severely challenged and may no longer be sustainable. Not only are new investigators the most fragile component of the research enterprise, they have also been hit hardest by the increased competition for research funding. This situation is particularly alarming in the case of R01 grants. In fiscal years 1995 and 1996 there were just over 1300 “new” (type 1) R01 grants awarded to previously unfunded scientists, those individuals seeking their first R01 grants from NIH (Fig. 1). After a sizeable increase to 1420 in 1997, the number of R01 grants awarded to previously unfunded scientists grew at a more modest rate (about 50 awards per year) over