NIH – CSR and ICs

The Academic Gerontocracy

Response to the Crisis Early investigator status: first real grant application. K awards, R13s etc don’t discount your status, but participation in a P01 does. Institute specific payline softening. Status maintained as you resubmit. Encourage earlier R01 submission: push funding to the first cycle.

RO1s : Gaming the system Choose your title carefully: this directs it to a particular review group. Write the abstract clearly and carefully. Check the review panel and identify conflicts. If rejected, you can appeal-rarely successful. Respond politely to the reviewers: don’t argue the toss ( usually) and never get verbally annoyed.

RO1s – Secular Trends Shorter 6 page grants – focus on hypothesis and preliminary data. Less on exhaustive description of methodology. Track record more relevant Expanded scale – avoid clustering? 30 is the new 150? Higher success on resubmissions. Approaching 30%. Faster pasting of review. ARRA impact on payline as challenge grants spill over. T-RO1s, Pioneer Awards.

New Critiques Bullet points on overall impact, significance, investigators, innovation, approach, environment. Also: human subjects, women and minority inclusion, vertebrates, biohazards. And comments on – resub, renewal, revision. And – foreign orgs, select agents, resource sharing, budget and period of support uickLinks-AnswersforApplicants.htm uickLinks-AnswersforApplicants.htm

New Scoring System High 1 Exceptional Exceptionally strong with essentially no weaknesses 2 Outstanding Extremely strong with negligible weaknesses 3 Excellent Very strong with only some minor weaknesses Medium 4 Very Good Strong but with numerous minor weaknesses 5 Good Strong but with at least one moderate weakness 6 Satisfactory Some strengths but also some moderate weaknesses Low 7 Fair Some strengths but with at least one major weakness 8 Marginal A few strengths and a few major weaknesses 9 Poor Very few strengths and numerous major weaknesses

RO1; Budgets, resources Justify everything in detail – personnel, equipment, supplies, mice, volunteer payments, recruitment costs, consortia May take modular approach if <$250k Describe resources and environment – feasibility and compliance IRB and IAUCC – just in time. 3 or 5 years Effort – 50% on first

Focus and Persistence Clear and novel hypothesis. Is it important? Evidence of feasibility: don’t distract with fluff. Take advantage of your critical mass – seek pre-review. Abstract and figures in preliminary data are the keys. Be responsive and polite on resubmission. Commonly asked questions at CSR website… c51- 2e11cc46eac8/15100/insiderguideapplicantsfinal.pdf

MATURING YOUR STRATEGY Some grants require a minimum of 20% effort. Otherwise, scale back and redistribute Shuffle your application dates – stay out of phase Mix your portfolio. 2 RO1s and a PPG Non-NIH sources increasingly important

A WALTZ WITH MEPHISTO

IDENTITY IS THE BALANCE BETWEEN INTEGRITY AND ADAPTABILITY Maintain your intellectual and fiscal independence Balance your portfolio Guard authorship and the right to publish State and have managed your conflict of interest The best service you can provide is to tell the truth, even painful truths

STAY TRUE TO YOUR COLORS