NIH R01 Awards: Fewer Winners, Bigger Prizes

Despite increasing demand for life sciences research funding and larger budgets from Congress, access to the investigator research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is getting harder, according to data released May 31 by Michael Lauer, NIH deputy director for Extramural Research.  R01 grants, the oldest and predominant funding mechanism NIH uses to distribute project-specific research grants, are becoming larger in size and more exclusive in who receives the grants. Recent statistics indicate dollars may be limited, in part, because they are going to fewer researchers in larger amounts.

Proponents for increasing appropriations for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and related federal agencies supporting life sciences research argue their case, in part, on statistics showing the unmet demand for funding as expressed by the number of unsuccessful proposals submitted to NIH each year. Most recently in 2015, 16.3 percent of de novo research grant applications were successful in their pursuit of NIF funding; the figure was as high as 27.1 percent in 2001.

Lauer posted two blog entries at the end of May providing historical data on grant success rates and the number of principal investigators (PIs) supported by NIH through its extramural grant programs.  His conclusion toward the end of the blog on PIs? “A core problem faced by the biomedical research enterprise is an increasing number of researchers vying for limited dollars.”

The dollars may be limited because they are going to fewer researchers in larger amounts, according to the statistics presented by Dr. Lauer.  The most widely available form of NIH funding, the R01 grant, is becoming more concentrated among fewer PIs and the number of unique PIs shrinking:

“The number of unique R01 awardees has actually declined over time, specifically by about 5 percent between 2011 and 2015. Meanwhile, the number of unique R01 applicants has substantially increased. The cumulative R01 investigator rate has declined from 45 percent to 34 percent between 2003 and 2015.”  [Source: May 31 blog]

Average award sizes also are increasing for R01 grants. NIH reports the average R01 award size of $435,525 was the highest in history in 2015, rising 2 percent from 2014 and 8 percent from 2013.