Not Just the Favored Few

On average, principal investigators have one to two NIH awards, writes Sally Rockey, NIH's Deputy Director for Extramural Research, at her Rock Talk blog. The number of award, she adds, varies a little depending on the PI's institution type; research institutes, followed by independent hospitals, tend to have slightly higher numbers of grants per PI. Rockey then zooms in on the investigators in the top 20 percent of the funding pool. Those PIs had an average of 2.2 grants, Rockey says, "although, a significant portion have three grants ongoing at any given time." She adds: "The success of any applicant, and the number of grants she or he holds, is based on a competitive process that I believe these data well reflect. Having said that, these data point to the fact that NIH awards are generally distributed broadly among PIs and not concentrated among a few."