Stupid Grant Tricks: End of Year Funding
September 24, 2013
I don’t know about you but as we near the end of the Fiscal Year, I like to start looking at RePORTER and SILK to keep an eye on what is getting picked up for NIH funding. This is when the ICs have to allocate their total FY outlay so any conservativeness from the prior three rounds of regular funding policy gets adjusted with the leavings.
Look for big mega-mechs being picked up, Rs that clearly didn’t make the regular paylines and most fascinatingly of all, the R56 handouts.
Happy searching.
DrugMonkey 
September 25, 2013 at 5:13 am
Ok, so – you search within IC and R56 by NOA date after 9/1/13, or study section, or PO? I’m not having a lot of success seeing what I think you’re trying to point out.
On another methodological question: year(s) ago, you posted a rant about the new EndNote. I’ve been hobbling along on EndNote 7 (because I know how it works, and I’ve not been willing to spend any time learning new ‘ware) and strapping it into Word as new as 2010, but at some point I will need to update. I’d guess by now you’ve resolved your rant with the new EndNote. What are your current rec.s along the referencing lines, easy plugins to Word?
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September 25, 2013 at 5:28 am
I know having stats on funding is important, but doing this has a feeling like google-stalking your ex, or eating too many bags of peanut M&M’s. You want to do, it feels good for about 2 nano-seconds, and then you are miserable for at least 24 hours.
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September 25, 2013 at 7:24 am
EndNote.
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September 25, 2013 at 10:21 am
mozilla zotero is free and works great (to replace endnote). not difficult to start using.
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September 25, 2013 at 10:22 am
(and you can import your current endnote refs into it, so not starting over)
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September 25, 2013 at 10:25 am
potnia,
I disagree. knowing what your ICs can and will do with end of the year pickups can be valuable information.
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September 26, 2013 at 4:30 am
Mendeley 4 lyfe on the reference manager front. Easiest way this side of Papers to have pdfs and citations linked together…and I don’t use a mac so Papers is right out. I work on multiple computers and so I enjoy cloud-synced applications in general. Mendeley is also free up to a point, and if you don’t care to pay for their storage you can associate the account with a dropbox folder so things sync simultaneously. I pay a small monthly subscription to make them sync for me because I am a good, but mostly lazy person.
What I am seeing, regarding the subject of this post, is that the primary ICs of interest to me are R56 cheapskates, measured in total number awarded as well as duration, compared to some more tangentially related ICs, even ones that are approximately the same size in total funding. For instance, I saw a year 7 R56 from NIDDK.
It is also sobering to see familiar names listed as having received R56 funding, people I would have assumed wouldn’t have as much to worry about. And I guess they don’t, really, because they were lucky enough to get picked up.
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September 26, 2013 at 5:54 am
Not totally sure but I think R56 are one year at a time. They get the number of the parent award that is being bridged, and I *think* this may include the year(?).
And, yes, the ratio of highly established to noob investigators (no point in discussing mid career investigators!) getting Bridged is a fascinating comparison, isn’t it?
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September 27, 2013 at 11:38 am
Not totally sure but I think R56 are one year at a time. They get the number of the parent award that is being bridged, and I *think* this may include the year(?).
Yes, they are one year, and yes, the number includes the year (and A1, if applicable) of the parent application that is being awarded as an R56.
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