Comparing the outputs of intramural and extramural grants funded by National Institutes of Health

  1. Xiang Zheng
  2. Qiyao Yang
  3. Jai Potnuri
  4. Chaoqun Ni
  5. B. Ian Hutchins

  • Curated by eLife

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    eLife Assessment

    This important study used five metrics to compare the cost-effectiveness of intramural and extramural research funded by the National Institutes of Health in the United States between 2009 and 2019. They found that each type of research had its own set of strengths: extramural research was more cost-effective in terms of publications, whereas intramural research was more cost-effective in terms of influencing clinical work. The evidence supporting these findings is mostly solid, but there are a number of questions about the methods and data - notably about indirect cost recovery and other non-NIH sources of funding - that need to be answered.

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Abstract

Funding agencies use a variety of mechanisms to fund research. The National Institutes of Health in the United States, for example, employs scientists to perform research at its own laboratories (intramural research), and it also awards grants to pay for research at external institutions such as universities (extramural research). Here, using data from 1594 intramural grants and 97054 extramural grants funded between 2009 and 2019, we compare the scholarly outputs from these two funding mechanisms in terms of number of publications, relative citation ratio and clinical metrics. We find that extramural awards more cost-effectively fund outputs commonly used for academic review such as number of publications and citations per dollar, while intramural awards are more cost-effective at generating work that influences future clinical work, more closely in line with agency health goals. These findings provide evidence that institutional incentives associated with different funding mechanisms drive their comparative strengths.

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  1. eLife

    eLife Assessment

    This important study used five metrics to compare the cost-effectiveness of intramural and extramural research funded by the National Institutes of Health in the United States between 2009 and 2019. They found that each type of research had its own set of strengths: extramural research was more cost-effective in terms of publications, whereas intramural research was more cost-effective in terms of influencing clinical work. The evidence supporting these findings is mostly solid, but there are a number of questions about the methods and data - notably about indirect cost recovery and other non-NIH sources of funding - that need to be answered.

  2. eLife

    Reviewer #1 (Public review):

    Summary:
    This article carefully compares intramural vs. extramural National Institutes of Health funded research during 2009-2019, according to a variety of bibliometric indices. They find that extramural awards more cost-effectively fund outputs commonly used for academic review such as number of publications and citations per dollar, while intramural awards are more cost-effective at generating work that influences future clinical work, more closely in line with agency health goals.

    Strengths:
    Great care was taken in selecting and cleaning the data, and in making sure that intramural vs. extramural projects were compared appropriately. The data has statistical validation. The trends are clear and convincing.

    Weaknesses:
    The Discussion is too short and descriptive, and needs more perspective - why are the findings important and what do they mean? Without recommending policy, at least these should discuss possible implications for policy.

    The biggest problem I have with this submission is Figure 3, which shows a big decrease in clinical-related parameters between 2014 and 2019 in both intramural and extramural research (panels C, D and E). There is no obvious explanation for this and I did not see any discussion of this trend, but it cries out for investigation. This might, for example, reflect global changes in funding policies which might also influence the observed closing gaps between intramural and extramural research.

  3. eLife

    Reviewer #2 (Public review):

    Summary:
    This article reports a cost-effectiveness comparison of intramural and extramural that NIH funded between 2009 and 2019. Using data obtained from NIH RePORTER, they linked total project costs to publication output, using robust validated metrics including Relative Citation Ratio (RCR), Approximate Potential to Translate (APT), and clinical citations. They find that after adjusting for confounders in regression and propensity-score analyses, extramural projects were generally more cost-effective, though intramural projects were more cost effective for generating clinical citations. They also describe differences in the topics of intramural- and extramural-funded publications, with intramural projects more likely to generate papers on viral infections and immunity or cancer metastases and survival, but less likely to generate papers on pregnancy and maternal health, brain connectivity and tasks, and adolescent experiences and depression. The authors aptly describe the different natures of the intramural and extramural funding models, including that extramural researchers spend much time writing grant applications and that the work described in extramural publications often receives funding from sources other than NIH grants.

    Strengths:
    The authors leveraged publicly available data (including RePORTER and the iCite repository) and used robust validated metrics (RCR, APT, clinical citations). They carefully considered a large number of confounders, including those related to the PI, and performed several well-described regression analyses.

    Weaknesses:
    Figure 3A shows intramural projects producing about 2.75 papers per year in 2009, whereas extramural projects are producing just over 1 paper per year. Extramural projects appear to catch up over the next five years. While the authors attempt to explain the difference in their figure legend, another explanation is that the intramural projects started well before 2009 but, as the authors state, intramural data only became available in 2009.

    As the authors note, funding information is often complex and difficult to characterize for an analysis like this. How did the authors handle: i) publications linked to multiple extramural grants; ii) publications linked to intramural and extramural grants; iii) publications linked NIH grants and non-NIH grants?
    I would think it necessary to somehow apportion credit, as otherwise it would appear that extramural projects are more productive than they truly are.

    Also, it is not clear if the authors took account of the indirect costs paid by the NIH to universities that have received extramural grants.

  4. eLife

    Reviewer #3 (Public review):

    Summary:
    The manuscript "Comparing the outputs of intramural and extramural grants funded by National Institutes of Health" demonstrates a comparative study on two funding mechanisms adopted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The authors adopted a quantitative approach and introduced five metrics to compare the output of intramural and extramural grants. These findings reveal the impacts of intramural and extramural grants on the scientific community, providing funders with insights into the future decisions of funding mechanisms they should take.

    Strengths:
    The authors clearly presented their methods for processing the NIH project data and classifying projects into either intramural or extramural categories. The limitations of the study are also well-addressed.

    Weaknesses:
    The article would benefit from a more thorough discussion of the literature, a clearer presentation of the results (especially in the figure captions), and the inclusion of evidence to support some of the claims.

  5. Version published to 10.1101/2023.11.09.566298 on bioRxiv