Increasing the number of competing awards at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute: projections of a model

In the mid 1980s, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) sought to extend the benefits of longer award terms to the research community by supporting requests for longer award terms that were scientifically justified. Although investigators welcomed the resultant increase in support stability, concerns were raised about the institute's ability to fund competing awards. A model was developed to assess alternative policies that might result in increased numbers of competing awards. Assuming that the NHLBI receives budget increases sufficient only to keep pace with inflation, the transitory effects of moving to the current policy of longer award terms should largely have passed by 1993. In the long term, the annual number of competing awards will exceed the average number funded between 1980 and 1983. To increase the annual number of competing awards over the long term would require either a reduction in the current percentage of five-year awards or an increase in the total number of active grants. A reduction in the current percentage of five-year awards would subject productive scientists to greater instability in their research support (that is, they would have to apply more frequently for grants) and would introduce greater variability in the number of competing awards available each year. A substantial increase in the total number of active NHLBI awards would be necessary to return the institute's competing awards to the levels of 1984 to 1988.