Obtaining Funding from the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development
By David P. Wacker, Ph.D.
The National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development (NICHD) is one of the National Institutes of
Health. As with the other institutes, NICHD reviews research
proposals three times per year (with application receipt dates for
new submissions being February 1, June 1, and October 1). The first
step in the review process is the Scientific Merit Review, which
occurs three to four months after the submission deadline. It is at
this stage that the scientific merits of the proposal are
evaluated. The second step is the Advisory Council Review, which
occurs about two months after the scientific review. It is at this
step that funding decisions are made regarding individual proposals
that have been evaluated as having high scientific merit.
The two most common funding mechanisms are the R01 and R03
applications for funding. The R01 is an individual research
proposal and comprises the majority of NIH-funded research
projects. For an R01 application, you will need a very strong
rationale or conceptual model, pilot data (including publications)
that provide empirical support for your proposed investigation, and
some indication of feasibility (including letters of commitment
from participating agencies). Contrary to popular belief,
single-case designs are acceptable (I have had three R01s funded,
and all were single-case designs), but it is clear that group
designs are preferred by most reviewers. In the analysis section,
it is important to justify the design selected (e.g., importance of
internal validity), and, if a group design is used, an estimate of
power is needed. Projects can be funded for up to five years and
can be continued as competitive renewals for several more five-year
periods. Competitive renewals are a good way to support
programmatic research but are subject to the same type of review
process as new R01 proposals. Having served on a review panel for
the previous four years, I can state firmly that competitive
renewals are reviewed just as critically as new proposals.
An under-utilized funding mechanism is the R03. This is a small
grants program that is used by investigators to collect needed
pilot data. The projects are limited to two years ($50,000 per
year), and their purpose is to develop or demonstrate the
organizational capacity needed to conduct a larger version of the
project, to obtain data that support the research hypotheses, and
to show feasibility. The proposal length is also reduced, which
makes this mechanism more "user friendly" than the R01.
All submitted proposals are assigned to two to four reviewers,
with the modal number being three. Each reviewer prepares a
detailed written review that is posted for the other reviewers to
read and is presented orally at the scientific review meetings. The
three reviewers each indicate a score for the proposal, with the
lower and upper scores forming the range. Following a group
discussion with the entire panel, all committee members
(approximately 25) anonymously score the proposal, with the mean of
those scores being sent to the principal investigator with the
written critique by the three reviewers. If a proposal is judged by
the three reviewers as being in the lower half of the proposals,
then no score is provided and no discussion occurs. In this case,
the investigator is notified of this outcome but still receives the
three written critiques. Approximately 70 proposals are reviewed
each funding cycle over a two-day period.
If a proposal is not funded, regardless of the score and even if
it is unscored, the investigators have the option to revise and
resubmit the proposal. They can revise and resubmit twice. It is
not uncommon for a proposal that was unscored during the first
review to receive a good score on a revised application. This
outcome occurs, for example, when a significant design or analysis
problem is noted in the first review and is successfully (and
sometimes easily) addressed in a revision. Although it is difficult
to receive an "unscored" rating, do not let this stop you from
revising the application, especially if the reviewers view the idea
as being innovative or significant. Remember that unscored simply
means that the proposal appears to be in the lower half of the
current proposals, not that it is poorly conceived.
Most funded proposals go thorough at least one revision. Of the
three R01s that we have had funded, one was revised once and the
other twice. We always expect to revise a proposal, and view the
first submission as a probe to find out what revisions are needed.
It is critical that the revised proposal directly address every
concern raised by the reviewers, and a section in the proposal is
designated for that purpose.
We have found the review process to be generally scientific and
objective. One advantage of the NICHD review process is that the
review panel remains mostly constant from one review cycle to the
next. Reviewers serve for up to five years on the panel, and so
there is a good chance that the same reviewers will receive the
revisions. Thus, if you can address the reviewers' concerns, there
is a good probability that the score will improve. Scores range
from 100 - 500, with 100 being perfect. Scores over 300 are rare
because they are usually in the lower half. Reviewers do not make
funding decisions, but review scores in the 120 - 170 range are
correlated with funding.
The review panel is large and quite diverse. There are usually
fewer than three behavioral analysts serving on the panel, and so
most proposals will be assigned to at least one reviewer who is a
psychiatrist or a neuropsychologist. It is very important to define
terms and to write in a descriptive fashion. If possible, show how
the behavioral mechanism being studied ties into other conceptual
models or clinical concerns better understood by more typical
reviewers.