An evaluation of programs to support new investigators at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: Striking a balance with funding for established investigators

As the largest funder of basic biomedical research in the US, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has an interest in maintaining a sustainable, productive workforce of investigators. Over the years, NIH has implemented several programs to attract early-stage investigators and other applicants without prior NIH support. The latest of these is the Next Generation Researchers Initiative. These programs have been shown to be successful in meeting NIH-wide goals but their success for any particular NIH institute or center (IC), and in any particular year, is determined by a variety of factors, some extrinsic to an IC's funding decision process. Each IC must balance support for new investigators with funding for productive ongoing programs of research. We examine historical trends in support of new investigators at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) over a 22-year period, as well as trends in some major extrinsic influences on that support. The results indicate that NIH's new investigator programs have succeeded in maintaining a balance between the support for new NIAID investigators while also continuing to support an expanded pool of established investigators. The programs have been particularly effective in providing support to early-stage investigators.