NIGMS says new investigators represent the majority of 2001-2003 new grant applicants

NIGMS says new investigators represent the majority of 2001-2003 new grant applicants

New investigators who have never received NIH funding comprise the bulk of the increase in new grant applications at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) between 2001 and 2003, accounting for nearly 70% of the growth in the institute's grant pool.

Departmentally, the majority of the growth came in the biostatistics and math sciences areas, due in large part to NIGMS’s partnering with the National Science Foundation in these fields. While departments like biomedical engineering also saw large increases, areas such as microbiology experienced negative growth due to restructuring of the discipline's priorities.

In terms of scoring, NIGMS reported on a percentile basis that essentially all proposals in the top 10% are funded, and between 10% and 20%, nearly all are funded. In the higher ranges, from 20% to 30% or 30% to 40%, first-time applicants did substantially better than established investigators between 2001 and 2003 in having their grants funded.