ArticleMolecular biology of the cell2017
The argument for diversifying the NIH grant portfolio.
Article in Molecular biology of the cell, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- NIH funding and the pursuit of edge science.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Pooled it
- Novel idea generation in social networks is optimized by exposure to a "Goldilocks" level of idea-variability.PNAS nexus · 2022Article
- Fund behavioral science like the frameworks we endorse: the case for increased funding of preliminary studies by the National Institutes of Health.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2022Article
- Inequalities in the distribution of National Institutes of Health research project grant funding.eLife · 2021Article
- Opinion: The National Institutes of Health needs to better balance funding distributions among US institutions.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- The NIH must reduce disparities in funding to maximize its return on investments from taxpayers.eLife · 2018Article
- A new paradigm for the scientific enterprise: nurturing the ecosystem.F1000Research · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
The United States has been a leader in biomedical science for decades, in large part because of the strategy used by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to invest its budgetary portfolio. They identified talented young scientists from each generation and gave them the resources they needed to initiate and maintain strong research programs. However, recently this investment has become less diversified, with a larger fraction of grant dollars in the hands of a smaller fraction of researchers. This threatens the future of our field, as many productive early and midcareer scientists are facing having to close their labs. NIH and others have studied this problem, gathering data that suggest that over a certain level of funding to an individual investigator, there are diminishing returns in scientific output. Here I review these data and examine the issues that led NIH to propose and then reverse a cap on funding to individual investigators, the Grant Support Index. I consider other proposed solutions, and call on all in the field to examine whether the status quo is acceptable, and if not, urge them to propose and advocate for concrete alternatives.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.