March 4th, 2009
The Obama Administration releases plans to give the National Institutes of Health even more money! $10,000,000,000 to spend over the next two years. Scientists all over the US begin to spontaneously combust with excitement.
March 6th, 2009
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act gives the NIH broad guidelines about how it must dispose of the extra cash. It is determined to release $200,000,000 to attack 200 specific “challenges”, in the form of RC1 Challenge Grants. Program Officers in every division of every institute at the NIH begin to spontaneously combust as they frantically start inventing writing said “challenges”.
March 10th, 2009
The RFA goes out and the NIH website crashes as 200,000 scientists all log on at once to see where the free cash is going.
March 12th, 2009
Vice-Chancellors and Provosts across the land begin screaming at their faculty to address these challenges, causing the fabric of the English language to actually weaken with the ceaseless repetition of the same eleven words, “We’re best placed to answer these challenges! This is easy money!”
March 14th, 2009
Frantic scribbling and writing begins, as people read the RFA and realise the application is only 12 pages. 200,000 scientists try and email their Program Officers asking for advice. Said POs re-ignite.
march 20th, 2009
Handsome, talented young project scientist Ian M. Brooks, Ph.D. is at “Bioinformatics in teh Boonies of TN” (not the official name), wondering how he is going to concentrate on giving his hour long seminar while trying to coordinate the writing of 4 RC1s all without internet or cell phone access.
April 1th, 2009
In an accidental case of Institutional Irony, the NIH chooses April Fools Day to start warning over-eager scientists that they should do the math(s) before submitting an RC1.
200 million bucks = 200 grants at 1mill/each
They are expecting thousands upon thousands of submissions.
plus, the million bucks includes your Indirect Costs (Editor’s Note: The money each institute skims off the top of every grant awarded. Usually between 35-45%). Therefore, a million bucks of easy money is suddenly $250,000 of very difficult money.
Quote of the week from stressed, and badly burned, PO: “Why did y’all think this was better or replacing the R01 mechanism? If y’all have a good idea, or it’s gonna take more than a year, write a damned R01!”
April 2nd, 2009
Handsome, independent and fragrant young scientist Ian. M.H. Brooks gets wind of issues with the RC1 mechanism and watches ‘damage control mode’ auto-switch. Four grants is cut to two immediately. “we always wanted to submit these as R01s” they lie.
April 4th, 2009
Charming, witty and erudite young scalawag of science, I.M.H. Brooks, Ph.D. is enjoying a generous glass of expensive Merlot whilst simultaneously deleting the two RC1s he now need not write. He focuses instead on the remaining two, aware that his team’s survival is (apparently) dependent on this funding. He also edits a manuscript and preps another for re-re-submission. For he is awesome.
April 5th, 2009
Delightful, milkskinned, viking Wargod of science, Ian the Brooks, becomes sole owner of a business in his own name, as a sexy tart of a private writing contact arrives on his over burdened desk, voluptuous with breathy promises of quadruple digit fees and a salve to his now aching resume. Another of the RC1s bites the dust as Our Hero explains to poor physician-cum-scientists that an RC1 is really not the funding mechanism they thought it was, and that maybe grown ups with PhDs should do the thinking from on.
April 6th, 2009
Scientific behemoth Ian The Gargantuan Brooks, (PhD), sits drinking cold decaf, surveying the ruin before him. The final RC1 just died like the whimpering coward it was. He wonders about the truly epic waste of time the last 6 weeks have been. He then shrugs his (frankly magnificent) shoulders and heads back to the Portals of Infinite Ruin to begin the quest for mightier game. The great R01…
Last updated:
Monday, 06 Apr
2009 - 20:01 UTC
That was a wonderfully
funnyinformativerealisticsad post Ian.My project was lucky enough to have secured more funding just before the chaos of the Challenge grants began. Some of my fellow lab members were not so fortunate and were frantically writing and in long meetings with our PI during that time.
I think you deserve a hot cup of coffee
@Elizabeth: Thanks :) I settled for a cold
dietMountain Dew instead. Can’t bear to seegoodcoffee go to waste and after having already drank 8 cups today I don’t think I could finish a whole pot…You’re fragrant? Good to know.
That being said, the whole Challenge Grant business has been madness. Quite literally everyone and their mother has written/thought about/going to mess up the submission of an RC1. My question now is, how is the NIH going to process all these gobs of applications? It’s mind boggling. I am glad that your work load has lessened and curious about your writing gig, though scoring an RC1 would have been quite a feather in a fragrant man’s hat.
Wow, my syntax/grammar/language skills are slipping. Sorry.
“having already drank 8 cups today "
Oh, have you had a lot of caffeine today, Ian? I never would have guessed.
I’m hearing a lot on the internet about half-finished challenge grants being abandoned like repossessed homes. I do wish people would think more about focus and scope before trying to write grants…
Luckily for me, Canadian PIs are not eligible for challenge grants, although we did just get an R21 on the first attempt (w00t!).
Fragrant. Got wind. Hmmm.
From Schadenfreude Gorge comes the sound of a hundred palaeontologists wetting themselves laughing at the amusing sight of cash-rich medical researchers tripping over their own genitalia at the thought of even more money, which is then taken away. Life is sweet.
@Anna: Exactly. I think the Old Boy’s Club is going to do rather well with this. Some institutions have ordered their faculty to submit one each so right there you have thousands of added subs. And who is reviewing all these? Hmmmm?
@Cath: I must admit I kind of assumed this would happen so I focused all my energy on the one that died to day. Most disappointed about that :(
AHG: LMAO, s’funny innit? I bet EvoDevo et al. are enjoying the view too!
FC Tolsa’s brawny, Spring cup goalscoring hero M. Runcie Macadam Fowler, wonders
In the last year, I’ve submitted 4, to funding institutions that all had a “success” rate close to 10%. One being accepted gives me a higher success rate than by chance alone, I think1. But there must be plenty of people out there submitting good proposals that don’t get accepted. Will RC1’s benefit people who aren’t already creaming in funding from other sources? Or are we just paying for more of the same?
Anyway, the thought of having a person in your institute whose job it is to help you write and complete these applications, in between liberally applying themselves with elephantine doses of caffeine2, sounds ingenious, and leaves me not a little envious.
1 Just don’t tell the chemists, grant reviewers or EPSRC
2 Yeah – what Henry said. “fragrant young scientist Ian. M.H. Brooks gets wind”. Phnarr phnarr.
And while I are being juvenile, and muttering about footballers and wind, BBC Manchester have been reporting on similar issues
Meanwhile, those of us on the industry side are trying to figure out how to assist those researchers who get the grants part with these hard-won gains a.s.a.p.
Anyway, the thought of having a person in your institute whose job it is to help you write and complete these applications, in between liberally applying themselves with elephantine doses of caffeine, sounds ingenious, and leaves me not a little envious.
My reaction exactly. I’m abroad, my US collaborator is one of those frothing at the mouth, and wants me to put in a lot of work still in the next couple of weeks for a topic that is a spinoff of an R01 we just submitted. When I pointed out that I am at a foreign institution, she answered “A subcontract of $25,000 and direct costs each can be applied for two years. The indirect costs can be 8% of $25,000.”
Well, a little is better than none, but with all that competition?!
Easy money. I like that. But as pointed out, at least in my field there is money. I’m not complaining.
@Mike: Indeed. I’m assuming that the odds will be somewhere in the region of 1000:1 to 10:1 depending on how popular your specific challenge is. SO if you’re not a big, well funded, famous lab don’t bother.
@Craig: How are you guys doing in this economy? I saw that the stimulus money is meant to help Us citizens only, including excluding foreign postdocs in some situations. My place is 95% non-US (at postdoc level) so I don’t see us
fartingfairing well.@Heather: It’s supposed to be 10% of my job, applying bioinformatics and biomedical informatics approaches to your topic du jour and guiding you through the labyrinthine NIH granting process. Right now I’d say it’s closer to 50%.
April 14th, 2009
Honestly, WTF?! Who is arranging this blistering clusterf**k?
@Ian: We (the Corporate “We”) are holding our own – for now. There was a round of layoffs that had an impact mostly in manufacturing, since we are selling less we don’t need as many people making things. Luckily scientists still need reagents and equipment. We are hopeful that with the influx of cash (stimulus money) and the short time (2 years) to spend the new money we can provide people the tools they need/want and that will help us (the Corporate “Us”).