In FY 2009, NIGMS expects to exercise financial management consistent with the following aims for research project grants (RPGs):
- to maintain a success rate of approximately 25 percent for RPGs,
- to increase the average size of a competing RPG in FY 2009 by approximately 3 percent over the average competing award made in FY 2008,
- to fully fund noncompeting awards at the most recently committed levels.
RPGs represent approximately 70 percent of the NIGMS research budget, and R01 grants represent approximately 85 percent of RPG awards. Therefore, financial management of R01s is an essential component of the overall NIGMS financial management strategy. NIGMS plans to restrict the average cost of new and renewal R01 awards through reductions from the total amount of funds requested. (NIGMS considers all such reductions on a case-by-case basis.)
NIGMS intends to maintain the number of new investigators comparable to the average of the five most recent years as described at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-09-013.html.
In addition, NIGMS, along with the rest of NIH, maintains the average length of a grant at approximately four years. Exceptions to this four-year limit include support for new investigators, MERIT awards, program project grants and other awards specifically designated by the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council. Without limitations on the length of grant awards, too large a proportion of any single year's budget would be devoted to paying noncompeting grants, leaving little available for new awards. This limitation on the length of awards, established at the direction of Congressional appropriations committees, ensures that sufficient funds are available each year to fund new grants or renewal awards that have undergone peer review.
