The NIH Cull and the K99/R00 cohorts

DataHound posted two key analyses on the state of the NIH-funded extramural work force. In the first one he presents the number of unique PIs from 1985-2014. It looks to me, roughly, that there are about 18% fewer PIs than the peak and approximately 10% fewer PIs if we ignore the ARRA interval.

Most of the real drop (i.e., not postARRA) occurred between FY2011 and FY2012 but there has been a downward trend from 2012 to 2014 so this looks to be the new reality.

The Cull is in full view now.

Has it seemed like grants are getting funded slightly more easily lately? If so, you can thank the Cull. (No doubt the pressure is more about applications than funded awards to unique PIs. But if the applications are seeing similar drops, this explains the feeling of relief, if you have it.)

The second post at DataHound presents several graphs on the K99/R00 awardees by original award year.

Transition to the R00 phase did not vary much up through the 2010 cohort and the cohorts are on the same trajectory, given the time function. Importantly the 2007-2009 cohorts follow the exact same trajectory, 2010 cohorts have a little bit of drop-off at the far end, due to less time since original award. Six years after the K99 award is the hard ceiling on transition to R00 in the first three cohorts and 2010 K99ers aren’t quite there yet.

Where the K99 awardee cohorts are not on the same trajectory is the transition to R01. DataHound’s plots show a clear plateau for the 2007-2010 cohorts. The 2007 awardees topped out at about 58% transitioning to R01 funding and subsequent cohort success rates are lower, year over year. Success in gaining an R01 for the 2009 cohort is about 70% that of the 2008 grouup and about half that of the 2007 cohort. The 2010 cohort is at least 20% less-successful than the 2009 K99 awardees.

It is pretty clear the Cull described in the first linked post is falling harder on the K99/R00 awardees than on the general pool of NIH-funded PIs. Depending on whether you take the ARRA high water mark for unique PIs or something lower that adheres to the normal trend, the Cull is only about a 10-20% as of FY2014.

This is BACKWARDS!

All this talk about getting more new scientists over the hump to faculty level career status. All this whinging and moaning about eating our seed corn. All the handwringing over ESIs.

And the program that is the crown jewel in doing something about transition is….not working.

If history is any guide, it would have taken official NIHdom about 15 years to “suddenly realize” this is the case and to try something new.

Thank goodness for DataHound. I anticipate he has accelerated this process by posting these two key analyses.