Funding Opportunities
Biostatistics Funding: Opportunities
from NIH
Keith Crank, AsA Research and Graduate education manager
O
ver the past couple of months, ASA NIGMS should force NIGMS to increase the number
Director of Science Policy Steve Pierson of biostatisticians on the review panel.
and I have been talking with a number of It is important for biostatistics programs to com-
people in the academic biostatistics community. Two pete for (and receive) these training grants. The num-
issues have surfaced as being of primary importance ber of U.S. citizens earning a bachelor’s degree in
(in terms of the community’s interaction with the statistics from a U.S. institution increased by 40%
National Institutes of Health): the need for more between 2001 and 2005. There was a 60% increase at
funding to train the next generation of biostatisti- the master’s level between 2002 and 2007. Because of
cians and the need for more funding for method- the longer time it takes to earn a PhD, it is too early to
ological research in biostatistics. determine whether PhD production will increase, as
The increasing demand for biostatisticians and well. However, it is likely to do so, if there is funding
the need for the development of new methods to support for these students.
understand biomedical data make these requests Encouragement to go to graduate school also is
fairly obvious and worth supporting. But, according coming from the Summer Institutes for Training in
to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), there are Biostatistics (SIBS) programs. Each program provides
opportunities available and the biostatistics commu- training in biostatistics for approximately 20 under-
nity is not applying for them. See the related article by graduate students. The students must be U.S. citizens.
Michelle C. Dunn on Page 13 for information about Begun in 2004 at three institutions, this program will
one of these opportunities. increase to eight institutions in the summer of 2010.
As I pointed out in the sidebar to my November The original three SIBS programs have been effective
Amstat News article, the National Institute for General in getting about 60% of their students to go to gradu-
Medical Science (NIGMS) supports predoctoral ate school, mostly in biostatistics or epidemiology. If
training through its Ruth L. Kirschstein National the additional five programs are as successful, an addi-
Research Service Award (NRSA) Institutional tional 50–60 U.S. students could be added per year to
Research Training Grants (T32). (Other institutes graduate programs in biostatistics. If there is no fund-
also support biostatistics training grants.) In recent ing to support their graduate studies, the value of the
years, there have been few, if any, applications to SIBS programs will be diminished. For more infor-
NIGMS from the biostatistics community. (The mation about SIBS, visit
www.nhlbi.nih.gov/funding/
next deadline is January 25, 2010.) For method- training/redbook/sibsweb.htm.
ological research in biostatistics, NIH currently has a Our understanding is that there is a misconcep-
study section—Biostatistical Methods and Research tion among some members of our profession regard-
Design, or BMRD—that was specifically established ing how percentilest— he measures the NIH institutes
to review this kind of proposal. However, over the and centers use to make funding decisions for R01
past year (maybe longer), the number of submissions and R21 research grantsa— re determined for grants
has dropped significantly, and this study section is in reviewed by the BMRD study section. All study
danger of being merged with another. sections assign a priority score (10–90) to each
The existence of these ‘opportunities’ does not reviewed application reflecting the evaluation of
mean all is well. There is a restriction to U.S. citizens scientific merit. For BMRD proposals, the priority
or permanent residents for the training grants. This scores are converted to percentiles based on only the
leaves out about 60% of the students who earn PhDs priority scores given to other applications reviewed
in statistics, broadly. And it leaves out all master’s-level by BMRD in the current and previous two review
students, even though there is a need (and a strong cycles. Thus, concerns that BMRD scoring may put
demand) for people with that level of education. (U.S. applicants at a disadvantage when compared to that
institutions award about four times as many master’s for other study sections are unfounded, as NIH will
degrees in statistics as they do PhDs in statistics.) have already adjusted for any discrepancies before it
The training grant proposals are reviewed by pan- makes funding decisions. While there may be good
els with expertise in a range of disciplines. Since the reasons for requesting review by other study sec-
panels are chosen based on the expertise needed to tions, general methodology proposals in biostatistics
review the proposals submitted, few of the panelists are should be submitted to BMRD.
biostatisticians. This means biostatistics proposals are To contact me, send an email to keith@amstat.
not reviewed by biostatisticians. Increasing the num- org. Questions or comments about this article are
ber of general biostatistics training grant proposals to always welcome. n
December 2009 AmstAt News 29
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100