Who Gets NIH Grants?

A blurb in Nature laments that some researchers get more NIH grants than others. I was shocked by the sheer number of dollars some of these researchers get (ie, $14.5 million for one researcher), even though I know that the NIH budget is huge. There are a number of other interesting tidbits here, though.
– It discusses the education inflation that occurred in the late 90’s when the NIH budget doubled and the blowback that is now occurring because the large number of newly-minted PhD’s can’t get funding for their own research.
– We learn that the redistribution of other people’s money is not happening in a fair manner. Clearly, the process is broken and needs to be fixed. (It couldn’t be that the whole concept is faulty.)
– The blurb is followed up with a profile of a top grant-getter. Guess what? He works really hard and has apparently implemented good management that gets results. Plus, he knows how to “work the system” because he used to work at the NIH.
Even though the NIH grant system is socialized science, a few market forces manage to eek through.

Share

9:55 pm on March 26, 2008