Conversation

The NIH plays a fundamental role in nearly every aspect of biomedical research. In addition to being the largest funder of basic research, ~50% of patents linked to drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration directly cite NIH-funded research.
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But the NIH also faces considerable challenges: - The average age of principal investigators keeps rising - Researchers report spending ~half their time on grant-related paperwork rather than active research - The ratio of “disruptive” papers appears to be declining
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While there is a lot of excitement over potential new models – funding people instead of projects, or using “golden tickets” to allow reviewers to champion specific proposals – we don’t really know which approaches are most effective at funding socially valuable science.
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