Am I reading this wrong? It looks like almost everyone at the 15th percentile or below got funded. How does this jibe with all of the 5% paylines we’ve been hearing about?
NIGMS doesn’t publish a payline. Every IC differs.
also, say it all together folks, success rate and paylines are not the same thing. This is the “after all was said and done” report. Paylines are conservative by necessity. and for those that publish interim paylines, they are frequently adjusted throughout the FY.
Although you have poo-pooed me over the years for claiming that some ICs have steep paylines and others don’t, if you compare this to NINDS’s identical graph for 2012, you can see that what I have always been told by NINDS program staff is exactly correct.
PP- it’s the absolute assertion of strict payline adherence, not the steepness of the slope that I pooh-pooh.
That’s fucken revisionist gibberish on your part, as your claim has always been that there is no substantial difference in the funding behavior of the ICs that claim paylines and those that don’t. Even the ICs that adhere to strict paylines–like NINDS apparently does as established by their published data–explicitly state that they allocate some funds to high program priority grants that are outside the payline. NIGMS has a very nice smooth curve descending gradually from 100%-funded, while NINDS has a cliff, with a little bit of foam at the bottom of the cliff.
Just a clarifying question about the idea of success rate: my understanding is that this means, “grants that eventually got funded” But there are only 2 chances. So does that mean that in this graph these are all A0 percentiles, but some of these grants got funded on A1, when they presumably got an improved score compared to where they’re represented here? In other words, that 37th %ile actually got funded at (for example) 9th %ile the next time around. Or am I way off base?
Score at which it got funded, not initial score. There IS some weirdness b/c of counting apps revised in same FY as one submission. But I assume the later score is depicted….
Could be, but they also skipped some sub 10% tiles, which suggests to me they are spreading the wealth. It could be those super scores were skipped because they were well funded labs or had some administrative issues that cropped up. Don’t squish my belief in a benevolent NIGMS DM… It’s all I got. False hope is better than no hope at all (cue music from Shawshank Redemption).
Some super-scored grants may not have gotten funded because of administrative reasons (scientific or budgetary overlap with existing grants, human or animal studies permission problems, etc). I got a fantastic score on a grant once, and it wasn’t awarded because a private foundation gave me an award for essentially identical research first. My grant would have been one of those tiny open bars below 10%.
NIGMS just posted their fiscal plan for 2013. Percentile funded is dropping from 25% to 18%. Keep in mind that GMS routinely cuts 20% from the proposed budget and all R01s (after ESI) are 4 years.
1. They mention that the success rate of RPGs will be 18%. But it is unclear what was the success rate last year, as the statistics they refer to only applies to R01s and not RPGs. Will they save the R01s and decrease the number of other RPGs?
2. Will the advantage for new investigators disappear?
3. Does 758 mean grants awarded after today or does it mean all grants during this fiscal year, including the ones that have been awarded until today?
3.5% reductions are pretty good actually. 10% is being seen in some other ICs.
mobydick- the NI policy is to keep overall success rates equivalent to the established investigator Type 1 success rates. As far as I am aware this has always been their goal so the “advantage” remains unchanged.
758 means all in the FY, going by their usual award numbers
What I’ve found out that altogether the NIH funded about 51,000 RPGs last year (2012), of which about 29,500 were R01s. I haven’t found the NIGMS data yet.
DrugMonkey 
May 7, 2013 at 11:07 am
Am I reading this wrong? It looks like almost everyone at the 15th percentile or below got funded. How does this jibe with all of the 5% paylines we’ve been hearing about?
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May 7, 2013 at 11:12 am
NIGMS doesn’t publish a payline. Every IC differs.
also, say it all together folks, success rate and paylines are not the same thing. This is the “after all was said and done” report. Paylines are conservative by necessity. and for those that publish interim paylines, they are frequently adjusted throughout the FY.
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May 7, 2013 at 11:18 am
NIAID is at 8%ile for this FY, btw.
writedit’s roundup is here http://writedit.wordpress.com/nih-paylines-resources and shows a lot of ICs with FY2012 paylines in the 11-15%ile range.
So NIGMS is not quite as unusual as you think
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May 7, 2013 at 12:06 pm
Although you have poo-pooed me over the years for claiming that some ICs have steep paylines and others don’t, if you compare this to NINDS’s identical graph for 2012, you can see that what I have always been told by NINDS program staff is exactly correct.
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May 7, 2013 at 1:10 pm
Academic Lurker,
I think these data are pre-sequester? The really low paylines, which are at around 8%, are post-sequester. Dunno.
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May 7, 2013 at 1:16 pm
These are FY 2012 yes. Ended Sep 30, 2012.
PP- it’s the absolute assertion of strict payline adherence, not the steepness of the slope that I pooh-pooh.
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May 7, 2013 at 1:21 pm
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/funding/2012-NINDS-Funding-Outcomes.htm
They are pretty harsh on the new awards to experienced investigators but renewals get a bit of flexibility PP
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May 7, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Which, I will note, is an even more BS policy.
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May 7, 2013 at 1:23 pm
PP- it’s the absolute assertion of strict payline adherence, not the steepness of the slope that I pooh-pooh.
That’s fucken revisionist gibberish on your part, as your claim has always been that there is no substantial difference in the funding behavior of the ICs that claim paylines and those that don’t. Even the ICs that adhere to strict paylines–like NINDS apparently does as established by their published data–explicitly state that they allocate some funds to high program priority grants that are outside the payline. NIGMS has a very nice smooth curve descending gradually from 100%-funded, while NINDS has a cliff, with a little bit of foam at the bottom of the cliff.
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May 7, 2013 at 1:42 pm
Peoples, remember NIGMS cuts grants severely in order to support more awards.
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May 7, 2013 at 2:12 pm
You are the one revising your assertions with respect to NINDS’ “strict” policy, PP.
(and stop trying to cheer me up with your grant data trolling!)
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May 7, 2013 at 4:34 pm
I like that pick-up at the 37th %-tile. You got to love the spread the wealth philosophy of NIGMS…
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May 7, 2013 at 4:41 pm
Looks to me like there is ample room for more cuts. I don’t know what gibberish Collins is whining about.
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May 7, 2013 at 4:50 pm
Just a clarifying question about the idea of success rate: my understanding is that this means, “grants that eventually got funded” But there are only 2 chances. So does that mean that in this graph these are all A0 percentiles, but some of these grants got funded on A1, when they presumably got an improved score compared to where they’re represented here? In other words, that 37th %ile actually got funded at (for example) 9th %ile the next time around. Or am I way off base?
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May 7, 2013 at 5:09 pm
Score at which it got funded, not initial score. There IS some weirdness b/c of counting apps revised in same FY as one submission. But I assume the later score is depicted….
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May 7, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Gatticca, how do you know they are not just correcting flagrant errors of review?
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May 7, 2013 at 5:30 pm
Could be, but they also skipped some sub 10% tiles, which suggests to me they are spreading the wealth. It could be those super scores were skipped because they were well funded labs or had some administrative issues that cropped up. Don’t squish my belief in a benevolent NIGMS DM… It’s all I got. False hope is better than no hope at all (cue music from Shawshank Redemption).
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May 7, 2013 at 6:41 pm
NIGMS does have the longest running “too much funding” policy you know…
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May 8, 2013 at 4:30 am
I think they have a higher payline than the other institutes because they only fund grants for 4 years.
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May 8, 2013 at 5:19 am
Some super-scored grants may not have gotten funded because of administrative reasons (scientific or budgetary overlap with existing grants, human or animal studies permission problems, etc). I got a fantastic score on a grant once, and it wasn’t awarded because a private foundation gave me an award for essentially identical research first. My grant would have been one of those tiny open bars below 10%.
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May 8, 2013 at 7:36 am
NIGMS just posted their fiscal plan for 2013. Percentile funded is dropping from 25% to 18%. Keep in mind that GMS routinely cuts 20% from the proposed budget and all R01s (after ESI) are 4 years.
https://loop.nigms.nih.gov/index.php/2013/05/08/budget-outlook-for-fiscal-year-2013-and-beyond/
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May 8, 2013 at 8:33 am
This update is very confusing, at least for me.
1. They mention that the success rate of RPGs will be 18%. But it is unclear what was the success rate last year, as the statistics they refer to only applies to R01s and not RPGs. Will they save the R01s and decrease the number of other RPGs?
2. Will the advantage for new investigators disappear?
3. Does 758 mean grants awarded after today or does it mean all grants during this fiscal year, including the ones that have been awarded until today?
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May 8, 2013 at 8:47 am
3.5% reductions are pretty good actually. 10% is being seen in some other ICs.
mobydick- the NI policy is to keep overall success rates equivalent to the established investigator Type 1 success rates. As far as I am aware this has always been their goal so the “advantage” remains unchanged.
758 means all in the FY, going by their usual award numbers
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May 8, 2013 at 8:56 am
Thanks DM. Do you know how many were awarded last year? I couldn’t find the number.
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May 8, 2013 at 9:07 am
they posted the trend for R01 here: https://loop.nigms.nih.gov/index.php/2013/05/07/fiscal-year-2012-r01-funding-outcomes/
If you want to dig into numbers you can try here http://report.nih.gov/ and you should be able to find the NIGMS numbers by mechanism
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May 8, 2013 at 10:06 am
What I’ve found out that altogether the NIH funded about 51,000 RPGs last year (2012), of which about 29,500 were R01s. I haven’t found the NIGMS data yet.
http://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/index.aspx
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May 15, 2013 at 2:17 am
Hi, after reading this awesome paragraph i am also happy to share my familiarity here with colleagues.
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