Endocrine Insider
December 11, 2008

In an announcement dated October 31, 2008, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) updated information it released in September regarding the funding of new investigators and the newly defined Early Stage Investigators.  The funding policies have arisen from the agency's Enhancing Peer Review initiative, which included a year-long review process, followed by recommendations from the NIH Peer Review Working Group.  The initiative is now in the implementation phase, as reported in the October 1, 2008 issue of Endocrine Insider.

In the updated announcement, NIH clarified that it will continue to fund new investigators at a rate comparable to that of established investigators submitting new R01 proposals.  To facilitate this goal, NIH will change the way in which it identifies new investigators.  The agency will use internal sources to determine if an investigator has had previous substantial NIH funding.  If not, the investigator will be defined as a new investigator.  Early Stage Investigators will be defined as a subset of new investigators having completed a terminal research degree or medical residency within the ten years prior to application.  When possible, new investigator applications will be clustered for review so that study sections can more fairly compare new investigators with each other rather then against established researchers.

Importantly, the NIH announcement emphasizes that these policies apply only to R01 applications and not to other granting mechanisms such as R03 and R21.  As such, NIH strongly encourages all new investigators to apply for an R01 rather than for another type of grant.

The complete announcement is available here.