Success Rate, Percentile Ranks, and Grant Budgets

From: Berg, Jeremy (NIH/NIGMS)
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2004 2:22 PM
To: NIGMS Grantees
Subject: Success Rate, Percentile Ranks, and Grant Budgets

Dear NIGMS Grantee:

I appreciate the many responses I received to the message I sent out earlier this month. Since a number of your questions focused on success rate, percentile ranks, and grant budgets, I prepared a question-and-answer document on these topics.

Here are the questions in that document; go to the Web site to read the answers.

Q. What do you mean by the "success rate" of grant applications funded by NIGMS and how does this relate to the percentile ranks assigned in peer review?

Q. How does NIGMS use percentile rank order to make its grant funding decisions?

Q. What is the average size of a competing NIGMS R01 grant and how has it changed over time?

Q. The stipends for predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows funded by training grants and individual fellowships have increased significantly in recent years. How can these increases be accommodated within the budget restrictions of research grants?

I continue to welcome your feedback and questions.

Best,

Jeremy M. Berg, Ph.D.
Director
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
bergj@mail.nih.gov