A Cap on Grant Applications — Does it Work?
14/09/11 19:48 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Submitted by S. Pelech - Kinexus on Wed, 09/14/2011 - 19:48.
May be I am missing something here, but if fewer investigators submit grant applications, then of course success rates would appear higher, even though less grant proposals are actually funded. While this probably means fewer investigators are wasting their time writing and/or reviewing grants, it does not translate that the most deserving and innovative researchers are actually supported.
In typical grants applications, an inordinate amount of information is demanded such that the description of the actual proposed experiments forms only a small portion of the submitted package. Moreover, the technical aspects of grant proposals are now rarely reviewed externally by experts, but only by two or three internal panel members that are often not as familiar about the specific research area. This problem has become increasingly inflated over the last two decades. In the end, many of the proposed experiments will have already been done before grant submission or will never be done by the applicant, or will have been done by someone else.
For new investigators that have limited track records, detailed grant applications of the proposed research is sound idea. Even if the grant is not funded, the feedback provided by knowledgeable peer-reviewers can be especially usefully to inexperienced researchers. However, for established investigators, their track record over the last five years is the better indicator of future performance. Society would save a lot of time and money if the applications from established investigators focused on what they achieved with their previous funding, and their new project descriptions were brief.
With respect to the amount of requested funds, most applications to the grant panels that I have served on in the last 30 years had very similar financial budgets in each competition. This aspect of grant applications actually receives relatively little attention in panel discussions. We should just award more grants with slightly lower than average budgets, and leave it to the investigators to use these funds as they see fit most prudently. Higher awards should be given to those investigators that demonstrated outstanding productivity. Those previously established investigators that have not been funded for several years could be treated as new investigators that would have to submit more exhaustive applications to justify new funding.
Link to the original blog post.
May be I am missing something here, but if fewer investigators submit grant applications, then of course success rates would appear higher, even though less grant proposals are actually funded. While this probably means fewer investigators are wasting their time writing and/or reviewing grants, it does not translate that the most deserving and innovative researchers are actually supported.
In typical grants applications, an inordinate amount of information is demanded such that the description of the actual proposed experiments forms only a small portion of the submitted package. Moreover, the technical aspects of grant proposals are now rarely reviewed externally by experts, but only by two or three internal panel members that are often not as familiar about the specific research area. This problem has become increasingly inflated over the last two decades. In the end, many of the proposed experiments will have already been done before grant submission or will never be done by the applicant, or will have been done by someone else.
For new investigators that have limited track records, detailed grant applications of the proposed research is sound idea. Even if the grant is not funded, the feedback provided by knowledgeable peer-reviewers can be especially usefully to inexperienced researchers. However, for established investigators, their track record over the last five years is the better indicator of future performance. Society would save a lot of time and money if the applications from established investigators focused on what they achieved with their previous funding, and their new project descriptions were brief.
With respect to the amount of requested funds, most applications to the grant panels that I have served on in the last 30 years had very similar financial budgets in each competition. This aspect of grant applications actually receives relatively little attention in panel discussions. We should just award more grants with slightly lower than average budgets, and leave it to the investigators to use these funds as they see fit most prudently. Higher awards should be given to those investigators that demonstrated outstanding productivity. Those previously established investigators that have not been funded for several years could be treated as new investigators that would have to submit more exhaustive applications to justify new funding.
Link to the original blog post.