The Trump administration’s blocking of new grant awards via the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has the potential to be a life and death decision. The fact is federal grants underlie U.S. leadership in disease research and STEM, and it’s essential that everyone understands the high standard of excellence and competitiveness by which federal research grants are awarded.
We are biomedical research scientists and professors at Queens College and Rutgers University. We have had the privilege and solemn responsibility of serving on many grant review panels for the NIH and National Science Foundation (NSF). We would like to pull back the curtain on the grant review process, focusing on NIH, which is the largest funder of science in the U.S.
The executive actions earlier this year halted the federal grant review process, which will in turn, cause massive delays and waste significant taxpayers’ dollars. First, about half of the study sections scheduled for February were cancelled, often the day before they were scheduled to meet. Thus, panelists had already completed the arduous task of reviewing proposals. Second, additional Study Section meetings could not be scheduled because NIH access to the Federal Register was blocked.
The Federal Register is the step through which grant review meetings are announced publicly, and this public announcement is required legally. Study sections are currently being rescheduled for April, but it remains to be seen whether NIH Institute Advisory Council meetings, at which funding decisions must be validated, will be held.
Finally, in an unparalleled move, millions of dollars of previously awarded grants have been rescinded. Laboratories will be forced to fire their personnel, including graduate students and other trainees who were committing their professional lives to acquiring scientific expertise and making contributions for the public good. Research that will anchor the cures of tomorrow will be halted mid-stream, wasting millions of NIH dollars already invested.
Researchers propose studies in their areas of expertise, but to earn an award, must have a track record of innovation and rigorous publication in peer reviewed science journals, in addition to providing compelling rationale for their ideas.
Grant proposals are reviewed by panels of experts, also known as study sections. In a review cycle, we typically receive 6-10 proposals each to review in depth, and each proposal is reviewed by three experts on the panel. Reviewers scrutinize all aspects of the scientific proposal, including its feasibility, its innovation, and how the team and institutional environment will advance its objectives, which takes approximately 40-80 hours of effort. Before the meeting, reviewers submit preliminary scores and then gain access to each other’s critiques.
To reduce the time and cost of the study section meeting, only proposals that scored in the top half during preliminary review will be discussed at the meeting. This is because a vanishingly small number of proposals will be funded, no more than one or two out of every 10.
Scientists accept the reality that they may need to respond to critiques the panel will provide and hone or adjust their planned approaches multiple times before a project may be funded and proceed. Discussions at study sections are strictly confidential, and conflicts of interest are carefully monitored and avoided to ensure fair consideration of all proposals.
An idea exists to replace the federal funding of science by state block grants. It is hard to imagine that such a system could have the level of rigor of the current system.
Reviewers would need to review grants further outside their expertise; conflicts of interest would be more difficult to avoid; and scientists would be more siloed, reducing the exchange of knowledge and ideas. Block grants could be large in favored states, and smaller in non-favored states, skewing the highly successful competition for the best ideas in the country to be awarded.
Of course, no human enterprise can be perfect. At the same time, we stand in awe at the levels of accountability and scrutiny that underpin the American system of federal funding of science. Ours is not a wasteful system — for every dollar invested by NIH, $2.56 of economic benefit is generated. Efficiency goals have value but should preserve a system already considered the world’s model of success and innovation.
A chainsaw approach will only leave an exemplary system broken — and shift the U.S. out of first place in world science. Our citizens deserve research outcomes that will produce the cures of tomorrow — our peer-reviewed scientists are already up to the task.
Savage-Dunn is a professor and chair, Department of Biology, Queens College, CUNY. Driscoll is a distinguished professor, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Rutgers University.