June 19, 2006

News Articles

• Feature Article: What Influences NIH Success Rates?
• You Can Submit Late if You're Affected by the Recent Floods

Opportunities and Resources

• New Tutorial: How to Succeed With Electronic Application

Advice Corner

• Your Summary Statement Is in the Commons -- Are You?
• How Do You Withdraw Your Electronic Application?
• How Early Can NIAID Fund an Award?
• Find Help for Specialized Grant Areas at NIAID
• How Does NIAID Adjust Your Annual Nonmodular Award?

New Initiatives

• See the initiative list.

	News Articles

Feature Article: What Influences NIH Success Rates?

In an era of flat NIH budgets, it's natural to be concerned about your chances of getting a research grant, especially if you're wondering where NIH is focusing its research dollars.

At NIAID's May Council, NIH Director Dr. Zerhouni gave an illustrated presentation, NIH at the Crossroads: Myths, Realities, and Strategies for the Future.

Here are some highlights. Unless otherwise indicated, all these figures and data are for research project grants and applications.

Factors affecting application success rates

So far, success rates appear to be decreasing for fiscal year 2006. Though some worry that solicited research initiatives such as the NIH Roadmap requests for applications are causing the decline, that's not the case.

Three main factors cause lower success rates: flat budgets, rising costs for existing grants, and the rising number of grant applications.

The NIH budget doubled from FY 1999 to FY 2003, so success rates for NIH research project grants rose even though we had more incoming applications. But since then, the NIH budget has flattened. The success rates went down because the cost of existing grants and the number of applications continued to rise.

To see how NIH has been presenting itself to Congress, read Dr. Zerhouni's FY 2007 budget request to the Senate appropriations subcommittee.

More applications to compete with

More and more applications are competing for our limited research funds.

During the NIH budget doubling from 1999 to 2003, the number of competing applications for research project grants rose by about 8,000. But it only took two more years to rise by about 8,000 again.

Paylines, percentiles, and success rates for R01s

Success rate is not synonymous with the percentile ranking that an application receives in review. The success rate is also distinct from the paylines that are set conservatively by some NIH institutes as a cutoff point for funding until the end of the fiscal year.

So paylines are not a direct indication of how many grants get funded. Many applications beyond the payline are funded, for example, through NIAID's selective pay and R56-Bridge awards.

The success rate for a grant type is higher than its payline. For NIAID R01s and small business applications, see NIAID Final Paylines by Fiscal Year.

For NIH R01s, see the graph below.

For more about percentiles and paylines, see our tutorial pages starting with Percentiles Indicate Relative Rank and Paylines Are a Conservative Funding Cut Point.

It's also worth noting that the success rate for applications understates the funding rate for applicants because many applicants send in more than one application in a year. See the data below.

Unsolicited grants far outnumber solicited

Worried that NIH may be favoring solicited research over unsolicited? Rest assured, the ratio has remained steady. See the graph.

Basic versus applied research

Similarly, the proportion of basic and applied research has been mostly steady since FY 1998.

Funds for the NIH Roadmap

The NIH Roadmap was 0.8 percent of the NIH research budget for FY 2005. This table shows the breakdown of awards by research type for FY 2005.

We hope you've found this article informative. For more information, see the original presentation, NIH at the Crossroads: Myths, Realities, and Strategies for the Future and NIH OER's Award Data.

You Can Submit Late if You're Affected by the Recent Floods

If you're affected by the recent flooding in New England, you can submit your application late. NIH expects that the delay will generally not exceed the amount of time that your institution was closed. See the May 15, 2006, NIH Guide notice.

Late paper and electronic applications should include a cover letter noting the reasons for the delay.

You don't need permission in advance for weather-related delays in grant application submissions. Remember that NIH typically allows lateness for circumstances beyond your control. These include natural disasters or personal tragedies, as well as service on an NIH study section.

	Opportunities and Resources

New Tutorial: How to Succeed With Electronic Application

Is your grant type transitioning to electronic application soon? Getting nervous yet? To help you along, we've created a new NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.

Don't miss our other new resources for electronic applications, mentioned in last month's issue and featured on NIAID's Application portal.

Often, applicants new to this process need extra help. For example, for the first electronic receipt date for SBIR and STTR, support requests spiked into the thousands.

For the next receipt dates people seemed far more comfortable with the process. We expect a similar pattern as other funding mechanisms transition to electronic application.

	Advice Corner

Your Summary Statement Is in the Commons -- Are You?

If you need more motivation to get an eRA Commons account, here it is. NIH will no longer mail paper summary statements, assignment, or change of assignment letters.

Instead, log in to the Commons to find this information. Scores will be posted approximately five working days after the study section meeting.

Between this change and the transition to electronic applications, it's more important than ever that organizations get their PIs registered in the Commons. Your organization's representative can use Plan Ahead for Electronic Application for guidance.

See the May 3, 2006, NIH Guide notice for the reminder and new details. This was previously announced in the September 8, 2005, NIH Guide.

How Do You Withdraw Your Electronic Application?

Let's say your electronic application passes Commons validation, and you then decide you don't want it to proceed for review. Your next step depends on how long it's been in the system.

You and your signing official have two weekdays to review the electronic application image in the Commons. During that time, your signing official can log in to the Commons and withdraw it by rejecting the application image. Read more on If Your Application Passes Commons Validation in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.

At the end of the two-day window, your application moves on for NIH's administrative review. After that, you can't withdraw it electronically; you must contact the scientific review officer listed in the Commons.

If you have other questions about electronic application, check out our Applying for a Grant questions and answers section.

How Early Can NIAID Fund an Award?

For the January or May advisory Council, we can fund qualifying applications as early as a few weeks after initial peer review through a process called expedited second-level review.

With the expedited approach, we do not wait for a Council meeting. Instead, some Council members perform second-level review about eight weeks before Council meets. For more information, see the Expedited Council Review and Award SOP.

Usually, we fund applications slated for September Council in the next fiscal year, which starts on October 1. Funding is often delayed further while we wait for our annual appropriation from Congress.

But occasionally it's important that we award a September Council application before the next fiscal year. We have the option of doing so if the application is high-priority and within the projected payline for the next fiscal year.

The same policies apply to applications, such as small business, reviewed by NIAID's Director's Advisory Group rather than Council.

For more information, see our Early Grant Awards questions and answers.

Find Help for Specialized Grant Areas at NIAID

If you are looking for help for certain grant types, it's best to talk to the NIAID expert for areas such as small business, research training, or international awards.

While your program officer is your primary information source, that person may not have the specialized knowledge you need for every topic. Finding Help questions and answers let you know whom to contact for different areas.

How Does NIAID Adjust Your Annual Nonmodular Award?

As a follow up to last month's reader question on Standard Inflation Rate and Non-PI Salary Caps, here's more about yearly adjustments for noncompeting awards that aren't using modular budgets.

Some years, NIAID may build a small percentage into the future year commitments to your nonmodular award to reflect inflation. Or, NIAID may lower the committed funding level using an average programmatic reduction when budgets are tighter.

We announce the adjustment each year in the Financial Management Plan. Because of budget constraints this year, NIAID is funding noncompeting nonmodular awards at a slightly lower rate -- 97.65 percent of the committed amount in the Notice of Grant Award for the previous year.

	New Initiatives

• NIH PA-06-468, Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Institutional Research Training Grants (T32)
• NIH RFA-AI-06-041, NIAID International Research in Infectious Diseases (IRID) Program (R01)
• NIH RFA-OD-06-004, Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (K12)
• NIH RFA-AI-06-033, NIAID Partnerships with Public-Private Partnerships (U01)
• NIH RFA-AI-06-036, Partnerships to Improve Diagnosis and Treatment of Selected Drug-Resistant Healthcare-Associated Infections (U01)
• NIH RFA-AI-06-029, Cooperative Research into Therapeutics and Diagnostics for Category B Bacteria, Viruses, and Parasites (U01)
• RFP-NIH-NIAID-DMID-08-03, Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units (VTEUs)
• NIH PA-06-419, Bioengineering Research Grants
• Grants.gov PAR-06-411, Exploratory Innovations in Biomedical Computational Science and Technology (R21)
• NIH PAR-06-410, Innovations in Biomedical Computational Science and Technology (R01)
• See the NIH Funding Opportunities Relevant to NIAID.