FY 2000 Financial Management Strategy for Extramural Research

Executive Summary

• High success rate. NIGMS predicts a success rate of 30-34 percent for research project grants in fiscal year (FY) 2000.
• Larger grants. Competing research project grants will be approximately 3 percent larger on average than in FY 1999 and 20 percent larger on average than in FY 1998.
• Some budgetary reductions in grants. To achieve the targeted success rate and size of award for R01 grants, NIGMS will need to make different budgetary reductions in new awards than in competing continuation awards. Specifically, the Institute expects to make smaller reductions in competing continuation awards than in new awards. All reductions are considered on a case-by-case basis.

Success rate is defined as the number of applications funded divided by the total number of applications, expressed as a percent. Success rate should not be confused with percentile, which is a measure of how well an application scored in relation to others in a defined pool. A chart showing the success rate of NIGMS research project grants over the past five years is posted at the end of this document.

Research project grants include awards made under the following mechanisms: R01, R37 (MERIT), R55, R15, R21, P01, and U01.

Financial Management Strategy for Research Project Grants

Research project grants (RPGs) represent approximately 80 percent of the NIGMS research and research training budget, and R01 grants represent approximately 83 percent of RPG awards. Therefore, financial management of RPGs, specifically R01s, is an essential component of the overall NIGMS financial management strategy.

This strategy is based on the dual premise that:

• NIGMS will honor its commitments for continued support of ongoing grants, and
• NIGMS will sustain a vigorous portfolio of new and competing continuation awards.

To ensure that these goals are met, NIGMS is reducing awards from the amount requested in new and competing continuation R01 grant applications. These reductions are dictated by the very large increases in the budgets requested, which since FY 1998, have increased by 34 percent in new applications and by 15 percent in competing continuation applications. Despite the reductions, the average size of a FY 2000 new and competing continuation RPG is still projected to be a healthy 20 percent larger than in FY 1998 and 3 percent larger than in FY 1999.

The overall success rate at the end of the fiscal year is projected to be 30-34 percent, which is comparable to that achieved in FY 1998 and FY 1999. NIGMS plans to make approximately as many new and competing continuation RPG awards in FY 2000 as in each of the previous two fiscal years.

Implementation of FY 2000 Financial Management Strategy

In FY 2000, NIGMS received $1,354,420,000 in its appropriation, an overall increase of 12.5 percent over the previous year. The majority of the increase is to support RPGs, but mainly ongoing RPGs, which have increased dramatically in number and average size over the past two years. In FY 1999, NIGMS funded 13 percent more new and competing continuation RPGs than in FY 1998 and 23 percent more than in FY 1997. The average size of new and competing FY 1999 awards increased by 17 percent over that in FY 1998.

NIGMS also plans to use its generous appropriation increase to provide additional funds for programs in the Division of Minority Opportunities in Research, to cover increases in the support of individual and institutional training grants, and to support new programs in structural genomics, pharmacogenetics, and integrative and collaborative approaches to research (Glue grants).

Information about NIGMS, its programs, and its staff can be found at http://www.nigms.nih.gov. Of particular interest may be the guidelines used by staff in making funding recommendations. These are part of the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council operating procedures and are posted at http://www.nigms.nih.gov/funding/opguide.html.

Chart 1

Figure legend: The FY 2000 success rate for RPGs is expected to be 30-34 percent. Success rate is defined as the number of applications funded divided by the total number of applications, expressed as a percent. Success rate should not be confused with percentile, which is a measure of how well an application scored in relation to others in a defined pool.

Chart 2

Figure legend: In FY 1999, the average size of new and competing continuation RPG awards increased by 17 percent above FY 1998 levels. In FY 2000, it is projected to increase to 20 percent above FY 1998 levels.