GOVERNMENT
NIH Branch Seeks Ways To Spur Innovation Despite Tight Budget
T
he National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), like other branches of the National Institutes of Health, is facing the tightest funding situation in memory. With a fiscal 1993 budget that is less than 1992's when inflation is taken into account, NIGMS expects to be able to award grants to only about 15% of the proposals it receives this year. That stressful situation has the institute's officials and advisers wondering how to ensure that a broad array of innovative research is funded. Earlier this month, NIGMS's advisory council debated whether the institute should take action to keep riskier research proposals from being shut out—perhaps by even going so far as to set aside money for wild ideas. 'If society wants to give us only a finite amount of resources, we have to live with that/' NIGMS's deputy director Marvin Cassman says. "But we want to be sure we fund as broad and diverse a cross section of opportunities as possible—not just a few highly productive areas, no matter how important.,, Unlike other NIH institutes, NIGMS does not focus on any particular disease or organ of the body. Instead, its mission is to support basic research that lays the foundation for more applied studies. Within NIH, NIGMS is the largest source of funding for academic chemistry research. NIGMS's fiscal 1993 budget is $833 million, just 2% more than last year's. The institute expects to be able to fund only about 700 new grants this year, down from 925 in fiscal 1992. The bulk of its budget is tied up in supporting roughly 2600 continuing projects. Cassman chaired a working group composed of advisory council members that met last December to discuss research funding strategies. The rest of the council joined in the debate at its Feb. 1 meeting. "Limited funding threatens the innovativeness and diversity of basic re20
FEBRUARY 15,1993 C&EN
Growth in NIGMS budget is less than inflation _U5 Program
Cellular & Molecular Basis of Disease Genetics Pharmacology & Biorelated Chemistry3 Biophysics & Physiological Sciences Minority Opportunities in Research Intramural research; administration TOTAL
!!*_ ($ millions)
$230.2 227.3 122.9 176.3 47.3 28.6 $832.6
$223.8 228.0 118.9 169.2 48.3 26.1 $814.3
% change 1992-93
3% 0 3 4 -2 10 2%
Note: Fiscal years, a Formerly Pharmacological Sciences. Source: National Institute of General Medical Sciences
search in two ways/' said working group member Leland H. Hartwell, professor of genetics at the University of Washington, Seattle. "It limits the number of investigators in the system. And study sections [NIH peer review groups that rank proposals] inevitably give the highest ratings to proposals that are guaranteed to be productive. 'The next level of enthusiasm goes to those proposals less certain of working but that have innovative, exciting ideas/7 he continued. 'That level tends to be cut out as funding decreases. The very nature of the award process tends to promote less risk taking." The working group deliberately did not come up with specific proposals or recommendations for fighting this tendency to fund only projects that are sure bets. But Hartwell tossed out the idea of starting some special mechanism that would emphasize risk taking and innovation. The grants awarded under such a new program would be smaller than the average NIH grant— now about $150,000 per year in direct costs—in order to spread the available money further. The council had mixed reactions to this proposal. 'Two classes of grant proposals are being wiped out," said Baldomero M. Olivera, biology professor at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City: "very innovative ideas with no preliminary data supporting them, and proposals from lab jocks who like to do all their work
themselves. Those proposals get compared to ones from large groups with 10 postdocs and five graduate students. NIH could expand its mechanisms for small awards to give otherwise unfunded investigators a separate review that looks at yield per dollar rather than total yield." NIH should consider setting up a system to fund "orphan ideas," said Martin L. Albert, professor of neurology at Boston University's school of medicine. "Set up a special committee to review wild ideas," he said. "Make arbitrary decisions based on how an idea feels. Don't conform to any rules. The 'wows' will get funded for some small amount." But Rowena G. Matthews, professor of biological chemistry at the University of Michigan's medical school in Ann Arbor, said she is opposed to set-asides. "If we are to be successful, the mainstream of what we fund has to be innovative." Instead of a separate program, she suggests asking study groups to focus on innovative research. Noting that the issue was too important to act on precipitously, NIGMS's director Ruth L. Kirschstein scheduled more discussion for the advisory council's next meeting in May. NIGMS will invite study section reviewers and representatives from other sections of NIH to take part. "We'll hope to come to a council consensus after the longer discussion in May," she said. Pamela Zurer
