I would like anyone who is planning on submitting an R21 grant application this February or March to take a look at the NIH Data Book page entitled Research and training grants: Success rates by mechanism and selected activity codes. Anyone who is telling you to apply for an R21 because it is a “starter grant” or that it is “easier” to get than an R01 is in fucken la-la-land! Let me summarize for you the success rates for R21s versus R01s over the last few years:
YEAR R01 R21
2006 20% 15%
2007 23% 16%
2008 23% 16%
2009 22% 14%
2010 22% 15%
2011 18% 13%
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herp
January 13, 2012 at 5:50 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Sadly, I think most of the “starter grants” are more competitive than an R01. Unfortunately the funding will continue to slowly dry up if there isn’t something done to fix it. I don’t foresee any president and congress ready and willing to help fund basic research.
Phillip IV
January 14, 2012 at 6:51 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Well, a lot of mad scientists have started out as delusional applicants. Ya gotta start somewhere, after all.
DrugMonkey
January 15, 2012 at 5:47 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
NIH is totally screwing up. They should be funding lots more of these. Prelim work to find out if it is worth a full R01 investment. R01s that convincingly arise from a prior R21 should be funded at a higher rate too.
BugDoc
January 20, 2012 at 12:34 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I agree with you, DM – more R21 applications should be funded. Right now, there seems to be a lot of magical thinking about where the substantial amount of preliminary data required to support R01 applications should come from.
Those three little words… | Fumbling Towards Tenure Track
June 7, 2012 at 8:31 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
[...] there is a lot of adviceout there that New or Early Stage Investigators should not apply for R21s, and even in light of this recent [...]