Biomedical scientists need an estimate of the probability that their National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant application will be funded. Previous letters in Science from our caucus (16 Dec. 1994, p. 1789; 7 July 1995, p. 13) provided the success rates of NIH grant requests. This information, specifically for unamended, unsolicited investigator-initiated R01 and R29 (FIRST) NIH applications, is not readily available from the Internet or NIH publications, which usually report overall success rates of unamended as well as resubmitted new and renewal requests reviewed during a fiscal year. For example, NIH reported that for fiscal year (FY) 1998, about 31% of R01 requests were funded. These data included all new and renewal submissions, as well as solicited grant requests. We have updated the information on unsolicited new and renewal R01 and R29 applications for FY 1998 based on information provided by NIH (1).

Annual increases over inflation in federal NIH appropriations have raised success rates of new R01 plus R29 grant applications (that is, Type 1) from 14%(86% denied funding) in FY 1994 to 20%(80% denied funding) in FY 1998 (Table 1). There was no major change in total number of applications submitted. The table also shows the benefits of submitting or, if necessary, resubmitting, revised applications. Ultimately, about 36% of proposals were funded, a number difficult to establish accurately because the timing of submission of amended applications usually extends beyond the fiscal year, the period of reporting used by NIH.