When dealing with new and early-stage investigator proposals, reviewers put less emphasis on preliminary data and publications and more emphasis on a researcher's training and experience: Does she or he have what it takes to make the project succeed?
If you study up on grantsmanship, get an early start, and write (and rewrite) a better-than-average new-investigator proposal, there's an excellent chance that you will take home a prize.
New investigators are always indicated by an asterisk, but "just to be sure, the chair will remind people that this is a new investigator" each time a new-investigator proposal is introduced.
New-investigator proposals attracted fewer positive words and more negative words than proposals from experienced investigators.
New-investigator proposals might receive a second look when NIH institutes make their final funding decisions, and strong proposals from early-career investigators are likely to be reconsidered.
NHLBI has established a separate pay line for new investigators; new-investigator proposals considered by NHLBI are no longer competing head-to-head with proposals from more experienced investigators.
Because new-investigator proposals tend to be weaker than the other proposals within the mechanism, "spreading the scores" pushes new-investigator scores downward more often than it pulls them up.
You may have heard stories about the "new-investigator discount --a fraction-of-a-point adiscount --a the score for new-investigator proposals in the fundiscount --a-but that's not NIH policy.
The addition of a Deputy Principal Investigator to proposal teams could reduce the burden on the Principal Investigator and provide an opportunity for additional scientists to gain mission leadership experience useful on future missions.
Rigorous low- and middle-income country clinical research investigator and proposal development, capacity-building training, and partnership/team development programs should be developed under the auspices of organizations such as the American Association for Cancer Research and American Society of Clinical Oncology.
The deficit at present lies in mentoring foreign investigators in proposal and research team development.
