2 Comments
The NIH Center for Scientific Review and National Institute of Mental Health will no longer offer a special deadline for new investigator resubmission applications. This change goes into effect starting with R01 applications submitted for due dates on or after January 25, 2019.
Since 2007 NIH had provided new investigators the option of submitting R01 A1 resubmission applications for consecutive review cycles (“next round resubmission”) thinking it would enable new investigators to potentially resubmit applications more rapidly. The expectation was that the policy would accelerate funding for new investigators. However, this turned out to be incorrect. Utilization of the “next round resubmission” policy is low, and it has not made the impact on age of first R01 or in time to award, so we are discontinuing the policy. For more information, see NOT-OD-19-053.
This is a very bad idea! Even though only ~ 10% of new investigators have been taking advantage of this special re-submission deadline, this is still a strong justification to keeping this policy. A few months of early submission could make a big difference for new investigators struggling to extend institutional support.
Why not update deadlines so that everyone can resubmit in the next cycle? The timeline for getting funded is already so long and if you have to wait two cycles to resubmit it extends it to almost two years between original submission and award.