New NIH Awards Will Help Those Who Just Missed The Cut

Healy unveils $30 million plan to provide interim funding for researchers struggling to secure NIH grants for their research WASHINGTON--In her first official appearance before Congress as National Institutes of Health director last month, Bernadine Healy delivered a gift to the scientific research community: a new $30 million awards program. Healy told the House appropriations subcommittee headed by Rep. William Natcher (D-Ky.) that by the end of September, NIH hopes to have thrown a lifeline to several hundred investigators who just missed having their ideas funded and need money to keep their labs afloat until the next round of awards. The new program will be called the James Shannon director's awards, according to Healy, in honor of the legendary figure who headed NIH for 13 years during its period of tremendous growth from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s. It will be funded in part from a $20 million discretionary fund that Congress created this year for the NIH director, supplemented by a "tax" of not more than 1 percent on the programs of each of NIH's 13 institutes. The program does not need congressional approval, and it will draw on current-year funding. Healy said that the amounts of the awards will probably run between $40,000 and $50,000 annually, and that the grants will be given out for up to two years. They will come with a 20 percent reimbursement rate for indirect costs--three or more times lower than what the government typically pays top research institutions. Any institution that is unable to accept such a low rate, she added, could decline the award. Her announcement caught officials both within and outside NIH by surprise. Several administrators confessed that they knew nothing of the program, and it was two weeks after her April 10 announcement before extramural program officials got the chance to begin drawing up guidelines to determine who is eligible, what criteria will be used for selection, and how the awards will be processed. Outside observers were generally supportive of the idea, although some wondered how individual institutes might react to a small cut in their funding. As one lobbyist noted, "This sounds like something Bernie [Healy] cooked up while she was sitting in her office at the Cleveland Clinic and waiting for the Senate to act on her nomination. But it's certainly in keeping with her desire to hit the ground running." Healy explained to Congress that the program gives the NIH director a chance to have an immediate impact on a pressing problem facing the biomedical community. "The awards will address the stability of the science base, which is one of my top priorities," Healy said in unveiling the program. "It's for those at the margin of funding, who may have missed the payline by one percentile." The awards, Healy explained, will give new researchers enough money to conduct feasibility studies, collect preliminary data, or answer other questions raised by peer reviewers. It will also give established scientists a chance to keep their research teams intact while they rework their applications. In either case, Healy suggested, scientists who receive a Shannon award should stand a better chance of obtaining full NIH funding the next time around than those who received no NIH money at all. As for the selection process itself, each institute will nominate applications from its own pool of proposals that were meritorious but unfunded, says John Diggs, NIH deputy director for extramural research. A committee of NIH administrators will then review all the applications and submit its recommendations to Healy, who will make the final selections. In addition to the specifics of the proposal, Diggs says, the panel is likely to consider such things as program relevance, a proper balance across fields, and the importance of supporting underrepresented groups, such as African Americans, Hispanic Americans, women, and M.D. researchers. The process will probably occur after the next round of advisory council meetings in June, he says, so that applications from the fall, winter, and spring funding cycles can be weighed at the same time. Healy acknowledged that the new program doesn't eliminate the problem of low success rates for applicants. But she said the Shannon awards might provide the only way for a small group of talented scientists to remain productive. "We won't be funding their science," Healy told Congress. "But we would be giving them enough money to get by, until they can try again. These awards will give them some options, like hanging on to a technician in the lab so that they can stay competitive. It may also diminish the likelihood that they will be forced to drop out of science altogether." The name of the program was chosen carefully, Healy added, "to convey the idea that these people are successful scientists, not failures." The program comes as bench scientists clamor for some relief from the rising odds against winning NIH funding. "Given $5 billion in extramural funding, her $30 million isn't going to have much of an impact," says Thomas Edgington, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, which has led the push for more individual investigator grants. "And, given the small amount of money, it absolutely guarantees that some people are going to be unhappy with the selection process. "On the other hand, if you want the NIH director to exert leadership, and we all do, then you have to give her the leeway to do what she feels is needed. That's what this program is really all about." Healy said she expects all of the Shannon awards to be made during the 1991 fiscal year, which ends September 30. She estimated that $30 million will be needed to fund some 300 to 400 scientists. And she emphasized that the program will be reviewed carefully before any decision is made on whether to continue it. "That's the beauty of the discretionary fund," she said. "If we don't like the results, we can do something with the money next year."

New NIH Awards Will Help Those Who Just Missed The Cut

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