From idea to grant: a long road
Three times a year, about 10,000 new grant applications deluge the National Institutes of Health's Center for Scientific Review (CSR) in Bethesda, Md. Once there, fewer than one-third will survive the winnowing process to receive federal funds.
Scientists across the country, including many at Dana-Farber, spend months preparing such applications — explaining the importance of the project, describing how it will be carried out, and justifying the dollar amount requested. They also must note potential conflicts of interest and satisfy other requirements if their work will involve humans or animals. DFCI's Office of Research helps first-time applicants and other grant-seekers negotiate the complicated process.
Federal grant reviewers decide how research proposals stack up.
NIH grants provide an average of about $220,000 per year — but can be much higher — and usually span three to five years.
From storerooms in the CSR, applications are assigned to the appropriate NIH unit for potential funding. Most Dana-Farber applications go to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The applications are funneled to panels of scientists in specialized fields, called "study sections," for review of their scientific merit. In a two-day meeting, the study section triages the proposals, rejecting the least-worthy 50 percent and assigning a priority score to each application in the top half. The NCI presently funds about 27 percent of grant proposals it receives.
Once notified formally, "winning" investigators receive from NIH the money to hire staff, obtain equipment, and begin work on the experiment.
