YOUNG INVESTIGATORS:
NIH Plans One Grant for All Sizes
Eliot Marshall
Young investigators are currently faced with a dilemma when requesting funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH): whether to apply for a standard R01 and compete with established investigators for a maximum award of $500,000 a year, or to apply for an R29, which is custom-designed for new applicants but pays at most $70,000 a year. NIH is currently considering resolving this dilemma by simply eliminating the R29, an experiment that it considers to be a failure.