- This topic has 6 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 5 days ago by .
-
Posts
-
Dear HRA Members,
We would like to gather information on other organizations’ funding recommendations and award allocations. We appreciate your responses to the following questions:- Does your organization fund all proposals above the cut off score (“fundable”) as determined/recommended by your grant selection committee?
- Does your organization have a target number of grants to be given out per year/funding cycle for each award type?
- If yes, can you please share: award, award amount, and target number of awards?
Warm Regards,Conquer CancerKavita Bhalla, PhD
Director, Scientific Review
Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation
2318 Mill Road, Suite 800
Alexandria, VA 22314
T: 571-483-1555
Hi Kavita,
ACS uses a scale of 1-5 with 0.1 increments (1.0, 1.1, etc.). Almost always, only applications scoring in the outstanding range, which is 1.0 to <1.5 following discussion and committee voting, move forward for funding consideration. We have a predetermined budget for each fiscal year and tend to spend it ~50/50 between 2 funding cycles. We try to evenly distribute the funds across our program offices (accounting for number of applications and cost per award) to ensure we invest equitably across scientific areas and grant mechanisms (mentored training versus pilot funding versus larger research grants, etc.).
We always have more outstanding applications than available budget. We prepare some estimates for how the funds may be divided across our funding mechanisms, but this is subject to change once the applications are reviewed and scored and the program offices and leadership have a clearer picture of the projects that have scored in the fundable range. In addition, if we have any partnerships or special funding initiatives, then we also have to account for those. These usually have a specific upper limit of awards associated with them. In this case there may not be enough meritorious proposals submitted to satisfy the upper limit.
Thanks,
Kim Clarke
Senior Scientist, βeta Club Member
270 Peachtree Street NW Suite 1300
Atlanta, GA 30303
Hi Kavita,At the Doris Duke Foundation, we have used scores more as a guide than to identify a hard cutoff for funding decisions. Similar to what Vanessa described, there is often a natural cutoff above which there is across the board agreement about the quality/excellence of the proposal. Then there is a next cutoff which creates a “bubble” of proposals. For this bubble, the lower score reflects disagreement for one or another reason rather than true concerns about quality. Similar to AASM, we consider additional in making recommendation decisions about proposals in the bubble. A factor considered, for example, is whether the concerns constitute fatal flaws. Unlike AASM, we resolve those outstanding questions as part of the pre-award process. The number of awards made in a given cycle has been determined in different ways. One is based on available funding (e.g. available budget allocation). Another is based on opportunity (e.g. how many meritorious proposals we assess there are in the pool). Using the latter method can result in greater or lower number of awards than originally projected.SindySindy Escobar Alvarez, PhD (she/her)
Program Director for Medical Research
Doris Duke Foundation
444 Madison Ave., Fl. 10
New York, NY 10022Hi Kavita,In response to your first question, we utilize the NIH scoring range of 1 to 9 as the overall impact score, with our funding cutoff set between 1.0 and 2.99 (high impact). Applications that receive scores in the range of 3.0 to 3.2 may be funded and considered for a process we refer to as “rapid revise and resubmit.” This provides applicants with the opportunity to address critiques raised by our scientific review committee that can be effectively resolved within the timeframe prior to presenting our funding recommendations to the board for official approval.Our decision on these scoring cutoffs was informed by a thorough analysis of data from recent years, including initial and final scores from reviewers, the variability between these scores, and the typical score of applications we typically choose to fund. It is important to note that while scoring plays a significant role in our evaluation process, we also take into account additional factors such as the career stage of the investigator, the relevance of the research topic, our budget, etc. This approach is very helpful when we are faced with a highly competitive pool of proposals that demonstrate strong scores, and there are budget constraints.Vanessa Gonzalez
Director of Grant Programs
2510 North Frontage Road, Darien, IL 60561
Direct: 630-737-9724 | P: 630-737-9700 | foundation.aasm.orgHi Kavita,
We are similar to the below as well. We consider natural breaks in score, available budget, programmatic priorities, applicant potential to contribute to the field (this extends our consideration beyond an assessment of the proposed research). Further, we have a whole file (holistic) review component to our review as well, particularly for our trainee and student level awards. We almost always have more meritorious proposals than available funds.
We have 20 different award programs so # of awards and $ available as well as funding % vary from program to program.
As a philosophical aside, my observation of study section behaviors seems to demonstrate that this is a far more human and therefore subjective effort than most think. I’ve seen single comments change the direction of the scoring, I’ve seen the same application have significantly different scores when considered within two separate study sections, I’ve seen how “who” is in the room can transform the culture of a study section.
Patricia
Patricia Frustace (she/her)
Senior Director Career Advancement and Population Health Programs
Main: 202.776.0544 | Mobile: 202.731.2670
Web: | Email: [email protected]
2021 L Street NW #900, Washington, DC 20036
Dear all,
I agree with what Patricia mentioned about how variable the review process is.
We have a budget-determined # of awards, but normally more meritorious grants than we can fund.
Our experience has been that looking at the overall scorings, there is no pre-determined cut off on what the pay-line is. Meaning that that line is dynamic and changes every year depending on the scores we received.
Most of the times there is a natural selection at the top and between the top scoring applications and the rest of the pack there is gap. We always look at this gap, spend most of the time during the review call to see if any applications that did not score well deserve to be included in the top selection, despite the final scoring. After we are comfortable with the decision of what stay at the top and deserve funding, the scoring number is not the only factor to decide what to fund. We select the application deserving funding not only based on the overall scoring, but also based on the overall portfolio of grants, diversifying and making sure the selection of what we fund fulfills our mission (almost in line with what the programmatic review does for CDMRP). The rest of the top-scoring unfunded proposals fall in a contingency list that we use until the announcement of the next grant cycle to propose to other organizations or donors to fund (with the approval of the applicant).
Salvatore La Rosa, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Kidney Cancer Association
Office 847.332.1051 x 121Web http://www.kidneycancer.org
Hi Kavita,
To add more data to your pool: HHF determines the number of awards each year based on available funding (related to the organizational budget, but also restricted funded HHF has received). Reviewers are not told how many awards will be funded. (Later stages of review by our scientific council and board are conducted with knowledge of the number of awards available). We have a ceiling going in to the process, but we could end up awarding fewer grants than was planned, in the case that we do not receive meritorious proposals for a specific award type for which there is restricted funding.While there’s no written rule, it’s been fairly consistent in the past few years that only proposals scoring above 3.0 on the NIH scale make the shortlist for the second round of peer review.Best,Christopher
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.