The rise and fall and rise of early-stage investigators – The story continues
Those of you with really long memories for a forgettable blog will remember that I raised a question at the end of that post: Could a policy affecting all investigators (the NIH policy change to allow a single amended submission) have a singular effect on a sub-group of investigators—early-stage and other inexperienced researchers?
Figure 1 provides the answer. As you may remember, I sorted experience into five cohorts (40+ years of experience, 31 to 40 years, 21 to 30 years, 11 to 20 years, and 0 to 10 years after a Ph.D.). The figure shows the proportional change in number of R01 submissions comparing 2014 to 2010 as a function of these experience-segregated cohorts. If the effect were equal across cohorts, the line would be flat. Instead, the change varied dramatically as a function of experience. Applications from the most junior investigators declined by almost 40 percent across these years.
Figure 1. Proportional change in number of submissions, comparing 2010 to 2014, by years since Ph.D.
It again seems easy to infer that this harsher wind of allowing only one amendment suppressed applications from less-experienced investigators.
A revised resubmission policy
Of course, you, the community, protested vigorously after the change to one submission was introduced. NIH took no action on the protests for a while. But this time the protests didn’t go away. (They usually do!) In April 2014, NIH moved to the new, improved policy of allowing “new” submissions after an unfunded submission—provided that the new submission does not make reference to reviewer comments on the prior application, and does not provide an introduction. (Please remember that if you’re thinking of submitting one of these “new” submissions!).
With this softer wind of endless “new” submissions, did the junior investigators show the greatest increase in applications? Figure 2 shows the two earliest rounds of submissions following the rule change. All cohorts increased their submissions. But, the most junior applicants showed the greatest increase in submissions and the approximately 40 percent increase across two rounds completely erased the decline in applications across the previous 4 years.
Figure 2. Proportional change in R01 submissions by Ph.D. cohort: May ‘15 vs. October ‘14
A lesson learned
So, with the experience of the interventions designed specifically to encourage new investigators, followed by the policy change to allow just one amended application, and finally the reversal to allowing endless “new” submissions, here’s what we’ve learned: Early-stage and other less experienced investigators are the most affected by these changes. Their application numbers rise when winds are softer, and fall when winds are harsher.
The thought lingers uneasily that this evidence across a short time supports the larger assertion that our generally austere funding climate is discouraging new investigators. The sharp fall in applications from early-stage investigators following the end of A2 submissions is a possible model for what is happening more generally as budgets have tightened. We need to measure our own planned policy changes against their likely effect on these vulnerable submissions from new investigators. We don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot…again!