tag:blog.phds.org,2007:/2007/12/7/fixing-the-nih-grant-making-process/comments Mephisto Noh-Varr 2007-12-11T23:25:32Z ez tag:blog.phds.org,2007-12-07:817:818 2007-12-11T23:25:31Z 2007-12-11T23:25:31Z <p>As someone just starting at the Assistant Professor level, I'm for anything that makes it easier for more inexperienced PI's to get a better shot at a grant - at least, the first time. Some institutes already have a policy to this end (adding 5% points). In theory I like the idea of basing the funding more on the PI than the proposal, but this would obviously hurt young investigators more - unless, they took into account "pedigree". Oh, he trained at Harvard, etc. That wouldn't be fair either, since plenty of smaller institutions produce brilliant people. Limiting the number of proposals would be arbitrary. Streamlining (shortening) the grants might make the review process go faster, but in many cases those extra pages are crucial to getting your ideas out there. If anything, I think shortening the proposals would help the "elites", simply because they can point to their past work in the form of papers. For us younger folks, who may not have as many pubs, we need the extra pages to cram in preliminary data. The only thing that would really help the grant making process is giving the NIH more money, so more grants get funded. Anything short of that is a stopgap measure until we get a president who cares more about science.</p>