Medical Writing, Editing & Grantsmanship

Update: Please see the NIH Paylines & Resources page for the latest information.

FY08 payline at NIAID

Einstein/Yeshiva Payline Table

Let’s see … while I’ve been trying to save the world from bad grantsmanship, last week the NSF released its FY 2006 academic R&D expenditure data … no payline news likely to be forthcoming Read the rest of this entry »

Update: The reason for these meetings can be better understood in light of the VCU-PM master research services agreement.

Not events I would want or expect to come across on a local calendar …

Nov 7 Philip Morris senior leadership summit (provost and vice presidents only) 3-5 p.m.
Nov 7 Philip Morris reception for deans, PM-funded faculty and DoDs 5-7 p.m.

Aside from their outlandishly inethical practices with regard to manipulating research, publications, and policy, Philip Morris et al. have one product line, and that product line is known to be highly addictive, toxic, and lethal. Profits used to fund tobacco industry grants are earned at the cost of millions of lives and billions of dollars worldwide. Why would any academic health center solicit and accept grants and gifts funded solely and directly through the sale of a product they themselves must counsel each and every patient, employee, faculty, student, and community member to avoid or stop using … an industry in direct conflict with their mission to protect and advance public and personal health.

Instead, an academic legitimacy dream come true: the newly constructed $350+ million Philip Morris USA Center for Research & Technology is the flagship member of Virginia BioTechnology Park, “a joint initiative of Virginia Commonwealth University [which gives PM employees affiliate faculty appointments] and the city of Richmond, situated on 34-acres adjacent to the VCU Medical Center [including the NCI-designated Massey Cancer Center, which lists Philip Morris and Altria among its corporate partners]” and home to the VCU Office of Vice President for Research (with the presidentially appointed VPR on comfortable terms with Philip Morris … also a recipient of NIH funding from ORI’s research on research integrity program).

Update: Science and The Chronicle of Higher Education (which includes a thread of comments) note that Philip Morris ended its PM External Research Program. However, this is not the end of PM funding at Universities.
Read the rest of this entry »

Update: Please see the NIH Paylines & Resources page for the latest information.

Yoiks. Everyone has a score and wants me to read the tarot cards to interpret theirs. FY08 officially began on Oct 1, but please remember that FY07 operated under a continuing resolution for essentially the whole year. The march of the FY08 Continuing Resolutions has begun, with the current one lasting until November 16th.

Some of you might have received the happy call in Sept about grants you’d given up on but are being considered for funding at the last minute as ICs scrambled to spend their remaining FY07 shekels. Otherwise, even though Council has probably met, Council doesn’t know how much they have in the kitty beyond the 2007 levels.

My advice as always is to ask your program officer to read the tea leaves based on what he/she knows of the scoring range in your study section and go from there. Also, please realize you can, assuming you have summary statement in hand to which to respond, resubmit and not lose your current score … no need to wait for final resolution (esp if you’re a new investigator who can benefit from the rapid turnaround option) unless you want to avoid the extra submission work at all costs. It can happen that an A1 application is funded even though an A2 has also been submitted/scored (or A0 version funded after an A1 is submitted).

Update: NIAID leads the way with a commentary on interim payline issues, of course:

“While the federal government remains on a CR, NIAID is funding a limited number of grants. We are awarding competing R01 applications to the 10.0 percentile; in the next few weeks we will post additional information at Paylines and Budget about continuing grants and other policies. Please remember that the 10.0 percentile provisional payline is not a true payline. It is an administrative measure that allows us to fund high-scoring grants while the budget picture is still unclear.”

Wouldn’t count on anything above the 10th percentile at other ICs right now either.

Fascinating. I stumbled across this while researching how NIH ICs interpret-implement the various funding mechanisms (story at 11). The source page hasn’t been updated since 2005, but this seems to offer some insight otherwise unavailable regarding NIAAA payline/funding decisions. In fact, the “NIAAA does not set an overall percentile payline that assures an award if you are at or better than the payline,” so this is as much as you’ll ever have to go on probably. Note that the lowly R03 is not listed here.

The NIAAA National Advisory Council has agreed upon the parameters for applications eligible for expedited concurrence:

1) Mechanism: R01, R21, R13, R15, R24, R25, K (all), T32, R41, R42, R43, R44

2) Percentile Score: 15.0 or better

3) Priority Score for non-percentiled applications: 150 or better

4) Maximum Direct Cost in any year: $500,000

5) Foreign Applications: exclude

6) Applications with a Human Subjects Concern, Animal Welfare Concern,
Unacceptable code for minorities, gender, or children are excluded.

On the NIH New Investigators resource page, NIAA further clarifies this policy as it applies to new PIs: “NIAAA is very much committed to assuring that new investigators are included among those successful in obtaining grant awards. To achieve this goal, NIAAA has established a procedure of affording the opportunity to allow all new investigators receiving scores within a minimum of 5 percentile points of the pay line (or the equivalent priority score) to respond to reviewer critiques in a letter to program officials. The responses are reviewed internally by NIAAA staff who may make a recommendation for award to the Institute Director. This procedure expedites the process for award for first time grant applicants and facilitates their entry into alcohol research. This accelerated rapid response and award procedure is in place for R01 and R21 mechanisms, as well as at the training level for all fellowship applications.”

Update: Please see the NIH Paylines & Resources page for the latest information.

Criminey. Can’t get half of these ICs to cough up anything resembling a payline, and the folks at NIAID seem to update theirs on an hourly basis.

Unlike most of its IC brethren, NIAID always gives very timely, precise information on its funding strategy, including paylines and percentiles. They’ve even taken the trouble to update the last few interim paylines, as shown below. Incredibly, they are also fully funding competing grants - with a 3% inflationary escalation for future years. I’m sure all you who experienced 25% budget cuts are thinking you’re in the wrong IC.

R01 - 12th percentile (new investigators, 14th percentile)
R03 - 135
R15 - 142 (AREA)
R21 - 135
R41/42 - 159 (STTR)
R43/44 - 180 (SBIR)
F31 - 140 (predoc)
F32 - 133 (postdoc)
K - 159 (other than K99)
T32 - not available

Now if we could only get NCI, NIDA, NIAAA, NICHD, et al. to cough up some guidance on their funding “strategies”.

Update: The priority scores for R03, R15, R21, and STTR proposals were bumped up just a tad.

Update 2: The T32 priority score cut-off has been set at 131.

Before those of you with competing R01 renewals that just missed the payline head for that fifth of whatever your drinking these days, might I recommend that you touch base once more with your program officer? Although you as a PI cannot apply for these funds, many ICs sign on to the R56 (high-priority, short-term project award) mechanism as a means of providing bridge support until your A1 goes in and gets funded. As the description says, “Program administrators may identify creative and innovative approaches within the pool of applications that fall just beyond the established payline. Such applications will be considered for conversion to an R56 award by the IC.”

Who’s in? NIA, NIAAA, NIAID, NIAMS, NCCAM, NCI, NIDCR, NIEHS, NIDA, NIDDK, NIMH, and NLM. Actually, this covers new R01s (not just competing renewals) in the same boat.

Update: Does the Great Zerhouni read this blog or what? Check out the NIH Director’s Bridge Awards notice. The new news is that $91 million has been set aside for such bridge funding, and that FY06 applications could be considered for these R56 awards. Get on the blower to your program officer, damn it!

NIGMS has their own internal program of interim funding:

“The National Institute of General Medical Sciences has implemented a policy to provide interim support to some unfunded R01 applicants whose competing continuation applications generally fall within about 10 percentile points beyond the range at which NIGMS is funding grants during that Council round. Selection of competing continuation applicants who will receive interim funding will be based on several factors, including an applicant’s other support, presence of an unobligated balance in the current grant, programmatic considerations, and the availability of funds.”

Very interesting & encouraging statistic used to back up this offer: “Between 55% and 65% of investigators whose renewal applications fall within 10 percentile points of the proposed funding range will receive funding within a year of the time their grants lapse.”

So, take heart, dear competing renewer.

Plus, the NLM offers a special interim funding option to new investigators seeking their first competitive renewal: “NLM will consider a request for interim support from grantees who were new investigators for their current award and are seeking their first competing renewal. This option is available only in cases where the original competing renewal application falls near but beyond the general payline. The goal of bridge funding is to help successful new investigators maintain basic resources until review of a revised application is complete.”

As does the NIBIB: Brand new starting in FY07, bridge funding is available for the first competing renewal of an investigator’s first R01 if the application is within 3 percentile points of the normal NIBIB R01 payline and if the application has at least one more opportunity for revision (ie, cannot be A2).

Update: Please see the NIH Paylines & Resources page for the latest information.

FY08 Payline Info: NLHBI:

R01, R21 - 15.0 percentile

R01 New Investigator (Type 1) - 20.0 percentile
R01 New Investigator (Type 1, if expedited administrative review resolves summary statement comments) - 25.0 percentile
R01 New Investigator First Renewal (Type 2) - 20.0 percentile

K awards - 165 priority score
T awards - 160 priority score
F31, F32 - 40.0 percentile

P01 - 150 priority score
P01 Subproject - 170 priority score

SBIR - 190 priority score
STTR - 180 priority score

As usual, all sorts of comments about award levels, particularly if renewals are going from categorical (detailed) to modular or vice versa.

While you twiddle your thumbs waiting for the big ICs to roll out their paylines, you can visit this nice online resource to better grasp the concept of Award Success Rates (measured in percentage, not percentile) by IC and fiscal year. To pour even more salt on those wounds, check the funding rates for the really fat years, like 1999 and 2000. Any universities not gobbling up NIH awards then must be in a world of hurt now.