Medical Writing, Editing & Grantsmanship

I took a pass in September on noting Les Costello’s piece in The Scientist entitled NIH R01s: No Longer the Best Science, in which he expresses concern over policies designed to increase funding to new/early stage investigators. This month, Walter Schaffer and Sally Rockey from OER (NIH’s Office of Extramural Research, which brings you the NIH Guide, Extramural Nexus, NIH Regional Grant Seminars, and all you need to know about grant application and management policies) respond with NIH Continues to Support the Best Science through R01s. {see Alison McCook’s comment below for the corrected subtitle to the Schaffer-Rockey piece.}

Essentially, Schaffer and Rockey lay out the history of NIH’s efforts to promote funding to new and early stage investigators (ESI) and the rationale for doing so:

When Dr. Costello [who "vehemently" objects to the new/ESI policy] received his first traditional NIH research grant (R01) in 1963, success rates were near 58%, and 35% of the competing R01s went to first-time recipients. … In 1977, the average age of new investigators was nearly 37, success rates had decreased to 28%, and the proportion of R01s going to new investigators had decreased to 33% … by 2006, less than 24% of the recipients of competing R01s were new investigators, success rates were below 21%, and the average age at first award of an R01 had increased to more than 42.

The first comment, however, keeps on with The Scientist theme about whether the NIH is funding the best science … not necessarily due to any potential discrimination favoring new investigators so much as penalizing amended applications by percentiling them separately (intended to reduce review burden by funding more A0s than A1s based on historical data showing that ~70% of A0s are eventually funded as A1s or A2s). The opening line probably sums up the scientific community’s mood though:

The angst over new and early stage scientists indicates a broader anxiety among established NIH investigators over what is seen as administrative meddling adding to an already capricious peer review process.

And then, of course, we have the forum over at Genome Technology asking Is Peer Review Broken? (review of grant applications and journal manuscripts). Clearly, CSR and OER need to keep the communication channels open for continued feedback on their enhancements to the application and review processes.

So asks the cover story by Meredith Salisbury for Genome Technology.

She starts the ball rolling in her accompanying editorial:

Get three scientists together, and it’s almost a guarantee that the conversation will eventually turn toward the vagaries of the peer review process. Be it for winning grant funding or getting a paper published, this system of relying on a handful of fellow scientists to select the most promising and influential research shapes — at least to some degree — every single researcher’s career path.

And then she gets 3+ scientists together, with the tone set right off the bat by Ferric Fang:

“For something that is of and for scientists, the peer review process is very unscientific,” says Ferric Fang, a professor of laboratory medicine and microbiology at the University of Washington. Whether it’s for papers or grants, having just a handful of people review someone’s work is statistically unsound, he adds. “If these [reviews] were data that you generated in your lab, you would say, ‘I don’t know what the conclusion of this is.’”

And per the suggestions made on grant review processes, apparently efforts to enhance peer review at the NIH haven’t gone far enough. A sampling to get you over to Genome Technology for the full report:

One hope is that having a larger pool of reviewers could help reduce the impact of any individual review, says Fang. Under the current system, “one bad review can sink an application.”

Another take on the grant review system in general is that focus needs to shift away from today’s model of specific proposals for short-term periods. …

Lawrence [Peter Lawrence at the zoology department of the University of Cambridge] would prefer a system where reviewers considered the track record of the investigator more than the details of the new research proposal (with special dispensation for new investigators). …

According to Fang, this concept of awarding funds on a track record basis would also serve the purpose of weeding out people who are very skilled at writing proposals but are less competent at actually performing the science.

Oh no! What’s a writedit to do?! Well, I am the first to acknowledge that no amount of skilled grantsmanship can make up for poor science, so I think, to a certain extent, this last concern can be dispensed with.