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National Institutes of Health research project grant inflation 1998 to 2021

We analyzed changes in total costs for National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Research Project Grants (RPGs) issued from fiscal years (FYs) 1998 to 2021 . Costs are measured in ‘nominal’ terms, meaning exactly as stated, or in ‘real’ terms, meaning after adjustment for inflation. The NIH uses a...

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Autores principales: Lauer, Michael S, Wang, Joy, Roychowdhury, Deepshikha
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9984192/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36762661
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.84245
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author Lauer, Michael S
Wang, Joy
Roychowdhury, Deepshikha
author_facet Lauer, Michael S
Wang, Joy
Roychowdhury, Deepshikha
author_sort Lauer, Michael S
collection PubMed
description We analyzed changes in total costs for National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Research Project Grants (RPGs) issued from fiscal years (FYs) 1998 to 2021 . Costs are measured in ‘nominal’ terms, meaning exactly as stated, or in ‘real’ terms, meaning after adjustment for inflation. The NIH uses a data-driven price index – the Biomedical Research and Development Price Index (BRDPI) – to account for inflation, enabling assessment of changes in real (that is, BRDPI-adjusted) costs over time. The BRDPI was higher than the general inflation rate from FY1998 until FY2012; since then the BRDPI has been similar to the general inflation rate likely due to caps on senior faculty salary support. Despite increases in nominal costs, recent years have seen increases in the absolute numbers of RPG and R01 awards. Real average and median RPG costs increased during the NIH-doubling (FY1998 to FY2003), decreased after the doubling and have remained relatively stable since. Of note, though, the degree of variation of RPG costs has changed over time, with more marked extremes observed on both higher and lower levels of cost. On both ends of the cost spectrum, the agency is funding a greater proportion of solicited projects, with nearly half of RPG money going toward solicited projects. After adjusting for confounders, we find no independent association of time with BRDPI-adjusted costs; in other words, changes in real costs are largely explained by changes in the composition of the NIH-grant portfolio.
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spelling pubmed-99841922023-03-04 National Institutes of Health research project grant inflation 1998 to 2021 Lauer, Michael S Wang, Joy Roychowdhury, Deepshikha eLife Computational and Systems Biology We analyzed changes in total costs for National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Research Project Grants (RPGs) issued from fiscal years (FYs) 1998 to 2021 . Costs are measured in ‘nominal’ terms, meaning exactly as stated, or in ‘real’ terms, meaning after adjustment for inflation. The NIH uses a data-driven price index – the Biomedical Research and Development Price Index (BRDPI) – to account for inflation, enabling assessment of changes in real (that is, BRDPI-adjusted) costs over time. The BRDPI was higher than the general inflation rate from FY1998 until FY2012; since then the BRDPI has been similar to the general inflation rate likely due to caps on senior faculty salary support. Despite increases in nominal costs, recent years have seen increases in the absolute numbers of RPG and R01 awards. Real average and median RPG costs increased during the NIH-doubling (FY1998 to FY2003), decreased after the doubling and have remained relatively stable since. Of note, though, the degree of variation of RPG costs has changed over time, with more marked extremes observed on both higher and lower levels of cost. On both ends of the cost spectrum, the agency is funding a greater proportion of solicited projects, with nearly half of RPG money going toward solicited projects. After adjusting for confounders, we find no independent association of time with BRDPI-adjusted costs; in other words, changes in real costs are largely explained by changes in the composition of the NIH-grant portfolio. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2023-02-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9984192/ /pubmed/36762661 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.84245 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) .
spellingShingle Computational and Systems Biology
Lauer, Michael S
Wang, Joy
Roychowdhury, Deepshikha
National Institutes of Health research project grant inflation 1998 to 2021
title National Institutes of Health research project grant inflation 1998 to 2021
title_full National Institutes of Health research project grant inflation 1998 to 2021
title_fullStr National Institutes of Health research project grant inflation 1998 to 2021
title_full_unstemmed National Institutes of Health research project grant inflation 1998 to 2021
title_short National Institutes of Health research project grant inflation 1998 to 2021
title_sort national institutes of health research project grant inflation 1998 to 2021
topic Computational and Systems Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9984192/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36762661
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.84245
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