NIH’s Research Grants Offer Seed Funding for Budding Scientists

Pity the poor postdoc. These scientists, having survived the treacherous process of earning a PhD, represent some of the best and brightest of the next generation of biomedical innovators. But most are still too young and inexperienced to have a decent shot at getting a federal research grant. So they throw themselves at the mercy of senior university researchers — no small number of whom have been known to treat their underlings as indentured servants.

Now it’s the National Institutes of Health to the rescue. On Friday, NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni announced the start of a grant program specifically geared toward making promising young investigators financially independent. Under the new Pathway to Independence Program, the NIH plans to award five-year grants to about 150 to 200 postdocs each year. The grants of almost $1 million each, to be awarded competitively on the basis of research proposals, "is a way for us to encourage the very best to establish themselves," Zerhouni said during a news briefing.

Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/29/AR2006012900914.html

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For more information about the NIH Pathway to Independence program visit: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/new_investigators/index.htm.

A Backgrounder is available at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/new_investigators/backgrounder.htm.

A list of Questions and Answers is available at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/new_investigators/QsandAs.htm.

The Office of the Director, the central office at NIH, is responsible for setting policy for NIH, which includes 27 Institutes and Centers. This involves planning, managing, and coordinating the programs and activities of all NIH components. The Office of the Director also includes program offices which are responsible for stimulating specific areas of research throughout NIH. Additional information is available at http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/.