Council News Vol. 7, no. 2

Though there may be a slight
drop in the numbers of grant
we fund, total grant numbers
will continue to be strong.
These are better measures of
how advantageous it is to app
to NIAID than is the payline,
primarily for the reasons state
above and because
paylines do not reveal
how many people are
getting grants relative to
those who are trying.
Budget forces
have on impoct
Other competing forces
are also affecting the
budget.
The average cost of a
grant is going up.
Modular grants (see
article on page 5) will
have an impact due to
rounding up of dollar
levels, and NIAID is
funding more expensive
grants, especially those for
pathogen genome sequencin
(which are two to four times
costly as the average R01).
While these items pull on the
purse strings, so do investiga
tors' high expectations that
institutes will deliver a range
requests. These include:
* Elimination of PI salary ca
* Reductions to budgetary (p
grammatic) grant adjustme
* The transition of new inve
gators from R29 to higher
dollar RO1 awards.
* The desire for new high-te
research resources, includi
imaging and microchips.

s
)ly:d

Further, NIAID's budget is
tapped by various sources at
NIH and the Department of
Health and Human Services for
a range of purposes.
Altogether, the latest budgetary
factors portend lower paylines,

bucking the trend of the past
several years.
Nevertheless, investigators
should keep in mind that
NIAID will still be funding a
large number of new grants next
fiscal year.

Trends in Research Project Grants for
NIAID 1994-1998
Percentile Payline (non-AIDS/AIDS)
( 2500 10/14 18/18 18/22 24/26 24/26.0
2 2000
to 1500 ii
1500
0 o
M, 00

I

as
of
ps.
ronts.
stich
ng

1994 1995 1996 1997 98
MCOMPETING ENONCOMPETING ENEW PI's
*projected

NIAID COSPONSORS HEPATITIS C RFA

Seven NIH components,
including NIAID, and the
American Digestive
Health Foundation are
sponsoring a request for
applications (RFA) to
stimulate basic and clinical research to counter the
growing threat of
hepatitis C.
The RFA covers a broad range
of research areas, including
epidemiology, vaccine and drug
development, natural history,
pathogenesis, transmission,

model systems, and more. For
more information, see the announcement in the NIH Guide at
http://www.nih. gov/grants/
guide/rfa-files/RFA-DK-98 -017.html, or please contact:
Leslye D. Johnson, Ph.D.
Chief Enteric and Hepatic Diseases
Branch
Division of Microbiology and
Infectious Diseases, NIAID
Solar Building, Room 3A22
Bethesda, MD 20892
Telephone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]