as you are aware Dear Reader we scientists take the citation of prior work very sriously| DrugMonkey
As previously noted, NIH issued an announcement (NOT-OD-25-132) of a policy which will limit the number of grant applications a given PI may submit. The key bit reads: NIH will only accept six new, renewal, resubmission, or revision applications from an individual Principal Investigator/Program Director or Multiple Principal Investigator for all council rounds in a […]| DrugMonkey
This somehow slipped my mind to promote, but the NIH is seeking a new Director for the National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH). The recruitment closes 10/06/2025. I have…opinions…on people who would choose to take such a position under the current regime but that’s not the point of the day. In reading over the posting […]| DrugMonkey
We tend to focus on the R01 NIH grant mechanism because it is a major award which supports a robust research effort. The R21s have a tendency to get overlooked, perhaps because we think of them as too small, being that they are limited to 2 years and $275,000 in total direct costs in most […]| DrugMonkey
Yesterday’s realization that some NIH institutes were indeed using the RF1 mechanism focused primarily on the 74 Type 4 RF1s, for reasons. These were all from NIA or NIMH. I miscounted the Type 1 RF1s. It appears from today’s RePORTERing that NIA is also funding 30 Type 1 RF1 with 2029 budget ends, and 41 […]| DrugMonkey
Once I learned that R01 grants could be issued as multi-year I forgot to keep an eye on RF1s. Which I was originally expecting as the only mechanism for awarding multi-year projects since it is exclusively a multi-year mechanism and all the ones I’ve ever seen are converted from R01 proposals. It turns out this […]| DrugMonkey
Jeremy Berg recently noted that he’s estimating about 2,400 grants that cannot be funded due to multi-year funding of other grants. His focus was on total funding and all grant mechanisms, as far as I can see. The main point of his post was that the NIH is close to being back on track as […]| DrugMonkey
When I finally grasped the initial salvo on the multi-year funding policy, it was buttressed by a comment in the President’s/NIH’s FY2026 budget justification/request [PDF] In FY 2026, …| DrugMonkey
As of today*, the NIH has funded 2,479 new (Type 1) R01 projects for Fiscal Year 2025. This FY expires at the end of the month, so we have four more weeks to go. For reference, NIH funded 4,612 new R01 in FY2024 and 5,038 new R01 in FY2023. We’re currently at about 54% of … … Continue reading →| DrugMonkey
It is one of the more telling things about people in academic science that our NIH peer review panels are now dominated by those who got their first grants with NIH’s ESI policy, and yet that policy of giving percentile breaks to Early Stage Investigators is still necessary to keep success rates the same as … … Continue reading →| DrugMonkey
Propublica has published a report on the loss of staff positions at various government agencies since January of 2025. This includes a list of percent losses at each NIH IC due to firings, layoffs,…| DrugMonkey
I was recently pondering the relative funding rates for amended (aka revised) NIH grant proposals, something I haven’t thought about much in years. It used to be quite a theme around here. I …| DrugMonkey
I know Doctor Editor Director Professor Berg has more sophisticated analyses going but this simple data set made sense to me once I realized how few new R01 NIAAA has issued so far (5). Since we ar…| DrugMonkey
Chatter on the socials today indicates that the NIH’s Director of the Center for Scientific Review is stepping down. [UPDATE 08/08/2025: NIH Director statement on Byrnes’ retirement.] N…| DrugMonkey
Following up on yesterday’s whinesplaining about the relative difficulty of getting a NIH grant across pertinent career eras, I had some more thoughts on generational expectations and gasligh…| DrugMonkey
There’s a parable about a coyote and a rabbit that ends with the coyote being criticized by a bystander after observing his fruitless chase. The coyote observed, “I was only running for…| DrugMonkey
NIH has issued NOT-OD-25-132 Supporting Fairness and Originality in NIH Research Applications which informs us that NIH will only accept six new, renewal, resubmission, or revision applications fro…| DrugMonkey
I ran across a clip of the current Director of the NIH and the prior Acting Director (and current Principal Deputy Director of the NIH) expressing great concern about scientists in training. As per…| DrugMonkey
My original observation that the NIH ICs do not fund Cycle I grants on time (i.e., by Dec 1) under Continuing Resolutions in the absence of Congress acting on an appropriation has been modified in …| DrugMonkey