 So maybe Rudy you could bring up the next speaker slides while I introduce him so I could have just done a simple intro of Larry Tabeck But I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to keep it simple because to be honest with you I think Larry deserves more than a simple introduction to this council. I Will start with some general biographical details because not all members of council or everybody watching might know a lot about Larry But but some of you probably do He has a DDS degree a doctor at dental surgery and also a PhD he and I share a Long-term interest in glycosylation that was my previous life as a graduate student I then change fields, but Larry is a distinguished scholar and researcher in glycosylation He's has other at your other professional experience before coming NIH a former senior associate dean and a professor at the University of Rochester a former NIH Merit awardee and member of the National Academy of Medicine But important to the discussion about NIH is when he came here in 2000 as the director of the National Institute of Dental and craniofacial Research a position he served for the better part of a decade and during that time Increasingly took on trans NIH roles helps standing up, you know the Common Fund helping Instrumentally with the era Stimulus package and I could go on a long list of things where he was called into to really help at a trans NIH level By 2009 he became the acting principal deputy director under Francis Collins and Shortly after I became director of NHGRI then in 2010. He was officially appointed the principal deputy director and so needless to say ever since I've served as one of the 27 Institute and Center directors with Larry Extensively interacting along with Francis with all of us as directors I mean this is not a meeting goes by where it's not both Francis and Larry helping Shepherd the set of things that we constantly have to deal with and that's where I want to make a few comments Instead of just saying he's the deputy director. I really want to tell you what a terrific deputy director He is I'll start off by saying that he's a great mentor to me He's sort of had about a 10-year head start as an institute director And I've looked at him on many occasions and taken a lot of lessons about how to navigate all sorts of complicated issues at a senior leadership position at NIH We've also worked at many projects together And continue to do so the present time things he's had to play major Leadership for trans NIH level around data science for example and others Where he's you know, I have interacted extensively and dealing with some very tough issues And and just watching him work in this very challenging set of Circumstances and issues that come to the leadership of NIH Many of which actually get solved and not even coming to the NIH as directors But then many that do come where we have to think as a group and how to Navigate them in a very diplomatic and thoughtful way and and watching him help do that and leading us through that Some of the things aren't so much fun and some of the things that Larry has been assigned to take leadership on He'll be the first to admit aren't all the fun stuff because But if it was really easy it wouldn't need him It's the hard stuff that needs him whether it's ethics issues or whether Other crises that come up or just significant problems And it but watching him is just been a very good learning experience for myself And I know I speak for the other Institute and center directors Just it really helps us learn what we're gonna have to face and continue to face in these leadership positions I'd also joke by pointing out that the other thing he and I share and we sometimes joke about is is you know for Long many years. I was a senior leader under in an institute this institute under Francis Collins And now he has that responsibility and Francis and Francis is Difficult it's wonderful, but he's difficult and every once in a while Larry will say to me Well, you know Francis and you know how he and that's absolutely true And so we sort of share that that spirit as well So all of this is a long-winded way of introducing the principal deputy director Larry Tabeck to you is here to talk about one of Many many issues he's dealing with and that's this next generation researchers initiative But also to say a big thanks to him This is an example of somebody that most people don't realize is incredibly vital to NIH It's a lot of stuff. He does is behind the scenes But but NIH Cospers because of his contributions. I can guarantee you NHGRI benefits both at the Institute level and then people like me and others who deal with Larry on a lot of hard problems I don't think he gets enough recognition So I want to use this opportunity to do so and I want to counsel to hear me say those words and people listening in Because I think Larry deserves every one of them. So welcome Larry and thank you for everything you do. Well, thank you that was Certainly an overly kind introduction Typically when I show up at NIH people think bad news is about to be set them And the other reaction I get is slumping of shoulders because it means that Francis couldn't be there and he sent me instead so So I but I do thank you So Let me just give you some of the background To this effort Which I think is familiar to all of your council members and certainly all of your staff As part of an NH wide strategic plan NIH Articulated our need to enhance the stewardship of our agency and To do that, of course Workforce is a very integral piece to that Both in terms of recruiting and retaining great people but also to Enhancing the workforce diversity and all of that goes hand in hand, of course Now many members of the extramural community have observed some of the challenges that that we face In in biomedical research today and in this perspective authored by Bruce Alberts and colleagues and PNAS summarizes a Good deal of the sentiment that's being expressed in the community and that is To just a paraphrase that people think that this biomedical research enterprise will go on forever in terms of growth But that unfortunately we've we've created a system In recent years that is as they term hyper competitive and that hyper competition Is is unfortunately discouraging many of the young people who we would very much like to attract to to biomedical research And and and because all of this is not sustainable if we don't do something And soon the whole enterprise is placed in jeopardy So Again, this is from nature, but there are many similar articles in in the scientific press As to what young scientists are saying And and none of this should come as a surprise to any of you There's this never-ending pursuit for the next You know funding opportunity it leaves Not as much time for science as people would like In some instances extreme competition has prompted folks to at least contemplate cutting corners In many instances the system has has evolved Into an over dependence on on senior investigators, you know, there is a fine line between mentorship and over dependence and And of course we haven't helped we meaning the government we meaning institutions who are risk-averse and piling on administrative Requirements on top of each other and so No one went into this business Seeking a nine-to-five job, but but not to do some of the things that that we insist that our folks do This slide Defines for you what I mean by hyper competition The lower curve in red are the number of awardees from 2003 to 2015 and And most people are quite surprised that that number has been relatively stable throughout that period It's basically a flat line What is not surprising of course is the upper curve in blue That's the number of applicants and that number just keeps going up and up and the Delta between these two curves Of course represents competition But in an extreme hyper competition and so again just returning to the media This was a article that appeared in the New York Times back in July of 2016 And this individual is just sort of stating what you all know that the average age for an independent award has crept up My first award was in 79 and I was 29 years old, I mean it I'm 65 you don't have to do the math But um, it's And of course that's just not the case anymore and and so the and the tendency As as she Articulates is for grants to go to scientists who already have them making it harder and harder to break into the system so NIH of course is intensely aware of this and concerned about this and What we have here is a display of the age of investigators funded by NIH separated somewhat arbitrarily into three age cohorts and so Let me begin with the good news the lower curve in blue And I'm a proud member of this cohort for many years now. I revealed that to you a few moments ago My cohort is doing great So hooray for us and I'll just leave it at that Not surprising to any of you is this middle curve the red curve Which is a display of early career and this is again arbitrarily Described as being 45 years or younger And they unfortunately had a precipitous decline finally leveling off when NIH put into place the early stage investigator policy which sought to normalize success rates among the More established and early-stage investigators and that sort of leveled off, but it hasn't rebounded and Then finally, there's the upper curve in green and this is the one that really caught our attention and has gotten us a little worried Again arbitrarily mid-career 46 to 60 Next year. I'll think it should be 46 to 65, but that's just human nature but that said You know this sort of reached a peak and now it seems to be declining and and that's of concern to us and all of you can Think of people in your own institution who you know have had an NIH grant We're doing fine just missed their award now are struggling to get that award, you know funded and Depending on the institution that you are working in You may or may not have the resiliency to support that individual until he or she gets back their grant And in some instances, you know catastrophic Occurs they have to leave they they have no no longer a position now. This is not just baby boomer demographics That that's the first impulse people look at this and go well you boomers are getting old and look to all of you in the audience We will eventually wear out and now I see smiles. I won't tell you who Eric is smiling the broadest But there are smiles particularly from the back of the room there Although a few people around the council table to Multiple analyses Indicate that the reason this is happening is that Established PIs are out competing other groups and it's not that they're getting better scores It's they're out competing because of resiliency. So let me Describe that a bit two investigators one established one newly minted Each just missed getting their R01 The person who is well established likely has another award or two or three or four To fall back on and yes, we know you only spend your resources on the exact project that you are funded for Right that even elicited broader smiles, but okay, that's fine And so and so and then the additional thing is if you've been at an institution for 10 or 20 or 30 or more years You probably know where there's some resources tucked away Institutionally that you might be able to draw on and so on and so forth if you're newly minted This was probably your only award highly likely It was your only award and you're less likely to have access to resources that the institution may be able to provide And so the the more established individual can hang in there until their, you know Application, you know finally gets support now. This is something that I'm sure members of council know It's not something that all of the Junior investigators know it's a lot easier To you know get a grant renewed than it is to get the grant initial Once you're in the system it it you know success begets some level of success And so these are success rates over time the upper curve in blue renewals So-called type twos the lower curve in red so-called type ones the new the new So when you take all of this together We feel that there are issues that NIH has got to become more proactive about in dealing with and It's also dove tails with another element in our need to enhance stewardship And that is to optimize approaches to inform funding decisions now I'm sure Eric and his staff have You know Articulated for you the process that this particular Institute goes through as you contemplate, you know what? application to fund and More difficultly what applications not to fund But but indeed there is some heterogeneity across the agency and and it behooves us to continually Revisit how we do this to inform those funding decisions So that's sort of the the local backdrop and then in the 21st century cures act which is this Remarkable piece of legislation passed in the most bipartisan of ways Which provided NIH with an enormous addition to the resources that we are able to draw upon But it also directs the NIH director to promote policies that will promote earlier independence and increased funding for new investigators and indeed It indicates that within the office of the director the quote next generation of researchers initiative Needs to be established through which the director will coordinate all policies and programs within NIH that are focused on This goal of providing opportunities for new researchers and importantly to get them independent sooner and Being independent is not the same thing as as being a Super postdoc in a professor's laboratory, and I know you appreciate that distinction so Recently Published in the NIH guide The formal policy supporting the next generation researchers initiative now At all councils except this one. I call this the next gen in Initiative now here next gen has a whole different meaning But I so I apologize in advance, but I'm referring of course to this this initiative if I slip into that jargon So how do we do this? You know, how how can we possibly increase the number of early career funded investigators now now again? You've all done the calculus Um We have a finite resource set and no matter how we slice it and dice it We have a finite resource set and so the money's got to come from someplace And so in in thinking this through and this really was Eric alluded to the discussions that the Institute and Senate directors have with Francis and his staff These discussions went over on with with members of the Institute and center directors with with the OD staff multiple times and I will say they were just like the best lab beating you ever attended there were no rules there was lots of food thrown around and You know people let it loose as to what they really felt and so forth and in the end I think we came up with something that that is that is certainly reasonable So the we decided that one thing we can do is we can further enhance The prioritization of the early-stage investigators program We know that this can be effective because it's what prevented this precipitous decline That I'm tracing here with the pointer But it just hasn't gone far enough in our view We would like to see an upturn over the next several years And so the definition of ESI is articulated here Again, we appreciate that there's a certain arbitrariness to this and we've received Multiple emails from people who are 11 years out or 10 years in one day out from you know They're training and so forth but again yet you have to Draw the line somewhere with the understanding that institutes and centers have the latitude To fund who they think should be funded and and so it's not that we're saying don't fund anybody Who was ten years in one day out? But but this is the policy that an ESI would be considered Ten years out from their their final training and the goal that we have for 2017 Is to fund about 200 more ESI awards than we did in 2016? And that's across the whole of NIH not just for the genome Institute, although if you want to you know Now the the other thing is The other cohort that we're really worried about and we haven't formally articulated this Across the agency although individual Institute and centers have Are the so-called early established investigators? So this is the person on your faculty who got his or her award as an ESI But now is in danger of losing all support and It's because they just missed and there's a lot of people in this circumstance and As a former research dean I still remember how much we invested and in a new investigator and the extraordinary loss in that investment if we if we Faced the dilemma of having to have somebody leave the institution because of loss of funding May we used to do everything possible To prevent that from happening, but the truth is Today it's a very different world and many Institutions don't have nearly the flexibility that we did back in the you know mid 90s It's it's just different now and and and except for a few you know unique and fortunate places Many institutions just don't have the wherewithal They want to do the right thing. It's just they you know, they don't have it So we view these people as is really greatly at risk and and and a place where Additional investment has to be made to really save of You know, there's a tremendous investment that NIH has made that Institutions have made society has made and so forth So again the goal for 2017 is to fund about 200 more of these types of folks and so together It's an additional 400 When you think about the numbers now Look One of the conundrums we got into and those of you who followed this closely with the so-called grants support index the GSI Know that It's an it's an age-old problem that we face as a funding agency and that you face at your own institutions How do you assess the value of the investments being made? As a research dean, you know, who do you give additional space to as an NIH Institute or senator rector to whom do you award the next grant and to whom do you not award it? Now No one would would argue with with any of these long-term outcomes as good measures of Productivity And and I suspect you could each add five of your own to this list and they'd be equally valuable and useful The problem is these are all long-term measures and We have to function in real time The Congress asks us what did you do for us yesterday? Right. It's we have to make a funding decision today We don't have the luxury of waiting five or ten or 40 years to see Whether something turns out to be really really important and we can all think of very good examples of where that has occurred and so We we've got to somehow figure out ways of Assessing impact, you know on a shorter time frame now to do this and now we're going to talk hypothetically because and Obviously part of the reason for coming here today is is to Seek your input as to other ways that we might be approaching So we need some sort of validated metric for output of productivity it We also have got to figure out ways of of codifying the amount of grant support you have But it just can't be dollars and cents because if you do a clinical trial You will need a different resource set than if you're doing drosophila genetics They're both great things to do. They just require different amounts of money and as we have to You know come to grips with that as well So I think some of you are aware NIH has this tool that they have developed the relative citation ratio Um, it's time independent and its field normalized that means that glycobiology, which gets no respect You don't have to compare it to genomics although I've been telling Francis for 17 years that DNA is a boring glycol conjugate Okay Think about that It's gotten me far right but um the point is though that you can do this enough in a field Agnostic way, so you're only comparing things to the field of interest and we've also validated this We've we've gotten, you know groups of scientists such as yourselves Sitting around the table give them a bunch of publications to review Ask them is as good bad or indifferent, you know with a whole set of criteria and so forth And it turns out that these the gold standard what scientists think about publications Correlate very well with the RCR index, and I certainly would urge you to read the original paper Now we've created this tool Called eyesight, which is available publicly and I have it here of the link down here If you haven't played with this if you're unaware of this This would be a very useful tool for Any sort of analytical work that you want to do in your home institution? It is quite powerful very fast So I did a quick experiment I looked up the RCR of some tall skinny genetics guy named Collins And I compared it to me and I and I quickly learned why he's the director and I'm not okay I mean, it's really quite valuable. It really gives you a sense of of the potential impact and influence that one's published work has and and and I mean all kidding aside when you look at it if you're honest The papers that you know were really good turn out to have very good RCR values And the ones that you pushed out the door because the postdoc had to leave and Everything they tried turned to not so good stuff and so forth And you know those papers weren't your finest effort They tend to have very low RCR so now none of you have that latter category, but I have a few of them So so check this out and take a look at it at any event We think that there are these options to be able to use measures like that but not exclusively to to try and to try and Get a better understanding of the portfolio and the value because we have to come back to this Main question Where's the money gonna come from so right now? It's coming from reprioritization We we've basically put the ball back in the court of Institute and Center Directors and of course Every day Institute and Center Directors are making decisions about priorities and indeed next to personnel issues That's probably the hardest thing that Institute and Center Directors have to do Some institutes and centers use bridge awards to help in this space others do not I mean, it's a it's an Institute Center specific thing a number of institutes and centers are using the so-called R35 mechanism which provides people with a little more money and a little bit longer time Sort of like a mini merit award if you will except instead of a merit award which was sort of a How should you say? You know lifetime achievement award if you will this is really more about the promise of what the person has going forward and And so we think that this might be a way of ameliorating some of this We are constantly monitoring at the agency level the size of the workforce the diversity of the workforce We're trying to figure out the best ways of Assessing scientific excellence and outcome and we're also monitoring the decisions made by ICs So that we get a sense of how heterogeneous we are across the landscape or how homogeneous we are and As many of you know who have been on council for a while when you've seen one Institute You've seen one Institute there's tremendous diversity in our institutes and centers at NIH and Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the Institute Center director to meet the mission of of that Institute or center But nevertheless it helps us to understand what the what the landscape Looks like now we've established a A working group of the advisory committee to the NIH director the next-gen researches working group and They are going to help us think through things Going forward now. This is a very interesting committee It has folks from all levels graduate students through full professors and so we are generating a Very strong diversity of opinion On on on on the call so far, although we will have a face-to-face meeting shortly the charge As articulated by the NIH director is to develop Goals and implementation strategies going forward to ensure support of the next generation of investigators to identify Productivity members measures and to recommend methods to track the impact of any policy That that that we are going to engage in And we are going to be engaging the General stakeholder community very very broadly on this We will use public meetings and conferences and webinars and so forth as we get up to speed with this And that any potential Approach that that we are contemplating The first sort of check-in by this group will be at the December ACD meeting of the you know of the council for the director And they'll be a short presentation just sort of explaining what the framing looks like the next check-in will be in next June so Roughly 10 months or so from now where Hopefully some initial recommendations will be Available if you're interested in this and I hope you all are at some level I would recommend you bookmark this link and check back To watch the progress of this group Additionally Mike Lauer who I think all of you know Has been quite Active in putting out blog discussions about this topic in the so-called open Mike Blog that he has and that's another good source of information that you might wish to interrogate Many many many people have been involved in this I I'd like to call out Tara Schwetz who's here who really has spent a tremendous amount of time Helping me with this and going forward I will say that the Group that I just mentioned this working group will be staffed by Shoshana Akana who's right next to Tara So send all of your hate mail to the nun home But but this really has been a team effort and I think You know most importantly You know we want to thank the many many stakeholders who took the time to write Whether they were for the GSI index or against the GSI index The important part was is that people at all levels from graduate students to Presidents of universities all weighed in And and we you know we read it all we listen to it all And hopefully going forward we will come up with a better Approach one that people are more comfortable with To build upon the interim thing that we are now doing and again the acd You know really should be Applauded for for all of their efforts as well. So with that I will stop I don't think this is a bashful counsel But if any of you are bashful My email address is there and a few of you who know me know that I'm absolutely Compulsive about email and answer it all at weird hours of the morning, but I do answer it And feel free to write me directly if your question or Comment goes on answer today. So thank you. Thank you Larry. I will open this up for questions Aviv thank you This was a very interesting and insightful. So you mentioned as an example I think you referred to in the past a person would have gotten their first grant at 29 And now it's 45 and some of it is clearly about the delay after you start as an independent person But some of it is about the extremely long period of time. It actually gets to get started as an independent person And what we've heard in the second part was about people who already start if they had PI status somewhere And so they could apply what are the thoughts around mechanisms like for example the early independence awards that are actually targeting at pushing people to independence? Much earlier and I would say that the track record of the small number of people who have gone through these paths Tend to actually be really good. This is it doesn't mean that it's low risk It's so selective today that you can't actually assess whether it's risky or not But it's something that I think we should all be paying more attention. Yeah, thanks. So first of all Mazal tough. That's a wonderful thing second You're right. We think that the early independence award should be exploited further You know part of the part of the problem though is the uptake From around the country in terms of institutions that are willing to take a chance has has not been as Strong as I would hope it would have been and And so that's that's one of the reasons why we are not perhaps supporting many more of these I I have attended a few of the Visits that this cohort have had here at NIH to present their work It's it's stunning. I mean, you're right. I mean these are these are great great young people And so I wish more institutions Would would be comfortable Gambling on somebody who you know doesn't have the postdoc, right, you know Um Back a hundred years ago in my day. I didn't do a postdoc because no one told me I needed to you know We just I just you know went ahead and did stuff But that's you know today. I guess as Institutions see their resources on a thinner and thinner margin They become more and more risk averse and anything that this council could contemplate In terms of how we might Pajol convince Other institutions to take a chance on these folks that that would help a great deal so thank you for the For the presentation. I want to go back to the kind of the metrics. So the publication metrics so I'm wondering if if consideration is being given to Impact of things other than publications so resources that are developed algorithm software packages So a lot of times the the initial primary publication for those may not have a very high citation Because people use data and resources without citing them But the actual data set or algorithm or software package or resource has very high impact in the community and how How would that get folded into this? Yeah, so no, thank you. That's very important point So genomics is so far ahead of most of the fields of science in this regard So we need to catch up the rest of NIH we need a way of capturing the algorithm Etc. So that it becomes sightable And and and then give, you know credit Where it is due the the eyesight web Tool does include things like patents But but what you're talking about comes way before that and and and it's exactly spot-on What you know what I would like to see if we fast forward a few years is data sets being formally sightable Algorithms being formally sightable at etc The the the mirror side to this though and again I'm not trying to bash institutions because I do appreciate how hard it is for them, but but then institutions also have to look at These contributions when considering things like promotion and tenure and and so forth and some do already which is great But others not as much and so if the whole biomedical field Makes a broad adoption of this which the genomics field clearly did years ago, right? It will all be much better off. But yes, ultimately It's publication its patents its changes to medical practice its algorithms It's you know, it's all the things that you have described and then some We just have to get swaner about how to capture those and make the appropriate actual add to Comments from both ends of the age span because you really didn't talk about The the older group and the increase in grants, which I certainly see in my own institution I do think it's worth some evaluation of the loss of pensions And the fact that my generation is really the first 401k generation and people are very leery about retiring And and so I do think probably some more thought about because I think that number may continue to increase On the younger and I think one simple thing that is one of it to me One of the most annoying NIH rules is around k-awards and applying for our ones. There are specific prohibitions of Taking these people who successfully Competed for k-awards and not allowing them to apply for our ones for several years. I to me There's absolutely no logic and you're I mentor many of these people in my own institution and you're just adding years Or completely artificially And I think your office may want to take on those rules and just eliminate them It's it's very interesting that you bring that up. So some of you Certainly from my generation will remember that the original k-award could not be received unless you had an R01 that in fact the k-award research plan was quote irrelevant and It was absolutely distinct From the research which had to be an R01. Okay, so somehow we lost that over the years And and I want to thank you for reminding me of that and that is something that we'll bring to the table because It is it is very strange, you know in terms of the you know the 401k Generation yeah but but again It's not about should people in that cohort continue to be professionally active if they wish to be it's about Do they really need a fifth or sixth grant? But I agree. I'm just saying I think you're gonna have to have an active plan I don't think that problem is gonna get better. I think it is likely to get worse. I agree with you So so on the topic of grant mechanisms, you've got to imagine another factor is the change in mechanisms towards bigger and bigger science over the years And as an institute that actively proactively promotes big science unabashedly I wonder what is the impact though on on On this exact issue of young investigators getting getting grants at the at the PhD to postdoc level I mean I can tell you and I be curious to see what other people think you you get some great PhDs come through who do not know how to write a research paper who have never you know because they have 20 nature papers on their CV as middle author and And you know that creates the issue of are they getting trained appropriately to lead these projects now, of course All these things are great to have happen. They produce huge data sets. Is there something we can think about well first of all is that a concern can you look at that analytically and And and you know for what that factor is and if it is a concern Is there something an institute like this one can do to to work within those big science projects? To make sure we better train people how to write grants and run labs So it'd be easy to just say yeah, it's all genomes fault. So fix it But but no I mean all of science of obviously is now heading in that direction The analyses that we did just just to remind everybody we're all based on our own ones So genome had modest impact on the analyses because of exactly what you just said because of the you know Need to do big you know big science and relatively few are all ones, you know in relation to other ICs You know so it begs the question do all PhDs Have to be trained to lead independent research initiatives and the answer is no not necessarily but they have to know what they're getting in for Right. I think we need to be more transparent About what they are being trained for And what the expectations that they have for their success and so if a young person is Is you know really making enormous contributions as the so-called middle author And is and is professionally content with that Great, but if they somehow thought that that was a springboard to being an independent investigator So that someday they have 20 people running around to be the middle authors That's where I think all of us not just of course the genome institute But all of us need to make sure that we are very clear and articulating What the expectation is what this career path will do for you and so forth now, of course, they're not mutually exclusive But but you're right if you spend you know five years or ten years or more Being that you know absolutely important interstitial Worker and then one day wake up and say well, wait a minute. When am I going to get my grant? Then we then we have a problem, you know, I think we need more truth in Advertising so it's something that we all need to come to grips with we've tried to incentivize through a discussion and Potential approaches for support the so-called staff scientist Instead of the eternal postdoc a more professional Pathway for individuals who want to be part of the interstitial team It hasn't taken off because again And I apologize for sounding like I'm bashing institutions this morning But again most institutions are loathe to make a commitment During a time when the grant isn't supporting that individual you see So if we support somebody for five years and then the the parent grant is lost For that to work the institution's got to make a commitment to say well, we'll keep you Salary for the one year or six months or you know, whatever the time interval is Any any old old old days where we had something called BRSG google it if you don't know what I'm talking about It was wonderful because research dean Let's like I could just you know plug in some money to keep people going and you didn't lose this amazing person Who had all this background? You know institutional knowledge and so forth today, you know, it just doesn't exist and so it's very very far Okay. Yeah, thank you very much for this presentation. It's good. Um, I I like the eyesight analysis But I think like carol brought up there's many more things to consider and I think one thing that Definitely needs to be considered in this day and age and again I think genomics may be ahead of many fields is The idea of preprints. Yes, and because many journals do not even allow the citation of preprints But and since it takes a year or so to publish a paper If you put a preprint out it can have a huge impact during that year, which would never really be captured by these metrics So I think that somehow needs to be yeah No, thank you for raising that as well and and indeed genomics is way ahead. Although I think other fields are slowly catching on NIH has done a number of things and Eric has been deeply involved in these discussions To catalyze more use of preprints We now allow preprints to be cited in grant applications, which I think is a good, you know, step forward But yes, we would need to include that as as well. You're absolutely correct one comment related to that google scholar Let's you join preprints and papers so that the counts are added um, you clearly described the need I I didn't hear Uh A resolution yet to where you're going to get the money. Um, so a specific question is Where is the money going to come for the 200 that you're going to award next year? Right? So that will be dependent upon each institute and center and each institute and center director Is figuring out where that resource set should come from the angst Um, and and it was a lot of angst but the angst that that many of the institute and center directors raised is Let me manage my own institute and center. Don't tell me specifically where I have to find this money from And so indeed the approach that we are now using That's what's happening is each institute and center will Have to figure out where that money will come from um In some it and again every institute's different some may have one less big Center grants some may have a few less ro ones to more established investigators or To people who are at all stages of the career, but are not doing work that is the highest, you know highest highest You know Mission related stuff It will just vary from institute to institute and we will track that to get a sense Of how this all shakes out Going forward This next gen working group of the acd Will try and come up with You know, perhaps a more robust rational way to to help Institute and center directors think through Um, where they might, you know look at within their own portfolios Bottom line though, it will always be the institute center director's obligation to You know to to make the priority call But we hope to do a better job of giving them tools to inform the decision. It seems you backed away from the cap of Of funding Um, is there no longer a commitment to cap funding for investigators? The the reason we backed away Is that a number of people Pointed out flaws in the approach that we were contemplating To me the most compelling Issue was that the way we were Um Assessing the amount of support Did not fully take into account team science We we tried some approaches to To doing that But but they were very crude and I was convinced After many discussions with institute and center directors including eric as well as many stakeholders That we would be potentially doing harm to team science Because we just were It was just too crude an approach We've got to figure out a better way of Rewarding and accounting for team science if we are to say you have You know 10.6 grant units, whatever that means as opposed to 11, you know um If we are able to do that and I think you know really smart people will be able to figure this out eventually I think then we can revisit it But only after doing extensive stakeholder discussion, you know, etc About potential approaches Thanks for the presentation. So in You showed that the distribution of age of our ds has changed from the 80s to today And express concern about that. Is there an optimal distribution? You have it the NIH has in mind and if so, how did they arrive at it? Yeah, so so the truth is we now are engaging with workforce economists To help us arrive at a at a scientific Answer to your question A a non-scientific answer is If you just keep plotting those trend lines eventually The middle disappears and we don't want to see that happen obviously now I don't think that that is possible, but So what we are now doing is we're engaging with workforce economists to help us really work through that There have been some very good publications Levit and Levit and PNAS published Which which is far more sophisticated than I can understand the math Of some workforce projections For all of science not just biomedical research and they they come up with Some rather I'm told reasonable projections of of what the workforce could look like We want folks to hone in on the biomedical research workforce And and come up with similar Calculations again to be vetted throughout the community to see if it you know makes sense But so we need to do a better job of that, you know going forward So I want to follow up a little bit on the on the teen science thing Um, because there's a you know, obviously it's it's a growing a growing trend And there's also a growing trend to have multiple p. I's on on grants and to have Larger grants where you might have multiple subcontracts going out to different people perhaps at different institutions You have any idea how that's held how to track that because some of the early stage investigators may actually be reasonably Well off, but they're not showing up in your in your grants as p. I right so So again all of the analysis we did discounted all of that purposely because It it's as you know, it's it's it's quite it's quite complicated um Going forward That's one of the things we have to do a better job at It's it speaks to what were very crude attempts At at capturing the essence of the teen science going on now That said I I I feel compelled to say the flip side We heard from many Early career investigators And i'm paraphrasing of course that my p. I thinks that just because I have a modest sum as a subcontract That somehow my career is being helped That's not necessarily the case and so there's a balance You know and and in some instances i'm sure their career is being helped But in some instances perhaps not as much as they Could be Just to follow up on on that last point a little bit I I have spent a lot of time at multiple institutions now arguing very strongly That just because you don't necessarily have two or three r1s in your own name that doesn't necessarily mean you're not being successful If you if you're funding your lab and you're funding your work However, that's coming in that that should be the and obviously producing good stuff That's really the most important thing, but you're right. It's it's been a struggle I've been doing this for 10 or 15 years now Yeah, and if institutions could Get on the same page about this it would help things a lot In in that particular vein There's a particular attention has to be made for computational scientists to research because in these kinds of settings It is often actually for the betterment of their own science To do it as part of something else than to do it in their own r1 Yes, because when they do it in their own r1 Who would actually do the experiments to collect the data? Either initially and even if they have that lined up initially Who will do any follow-ups to know whether the analysis is correct? And that has been I think in that sense the multi pi r1s and even more than that Sometimes the bigger grants have been the place in which the best computational work ended up being done Because there was a framework in which to do this and the fact is at the same time the person had to somehow eke out some You know Standardly looking r1 so that their department chair would say that they have independent funding sometimes led to completely ridiculous things It was like a speckle of the actual funding a speckle of the actual science But then that's the entire thing And they do things at the na age By stating that that's not how they count things that would have an impact on departments Besides the fact that we all try to educate our communities at the same time and for computational folks That's different. Yeah for a lot of experiments And of course in many ways the computational scientists are leading the way, right? And so they're out ahead And and and so we should be aiming at that And not at You know what was but what is going to be you know Permits and I would highlight in that there are two styles of or actually three styles of computational science that That count for a great deal in in the context especially of this institute But also more broadly at the na age There's the software engineering side which usually tends to have its own grants and its own funding is a big thing But it's actually rarely actually done It's primarily a standard academic p.i.'s business There's Development of new computational methods and there's also a great deal of analysis done by computational analysts And it's this third part that often yields a lot of the biological insight Intends to work the best as part of something else And not as a standalone as a standalone It also doesn't review well in study sections because people Are kind of struggling to understand where's the innovation? Where's the thing who would do this who would do that? And we have to make sure that that doesn't get lost because it's more and more what the future is going to look like Very very good points. Thank you There do you want to say anything about some of the tools that are being developed essentially for us to be able to Identify grants that might be right on the edge to try to help Well, I well, I mean these are these are things that are going to sort of we may be bringing some of those identified grants to this council for discussions Yeah, so so what what what we're going to do centrally within the office of the director is identify um Sort of the next group down that we know that the individual councils have not yet approved for funding To say okay this next set of you know, if you're at the nci this next set of 50 If you're at the you know hdri this next set of six, you know, or you know, whatever the numbers are Sort of the next ones up for consideration And it's just used as a as an aid. It's used as a tool Not all will be funded. We hope many will But it allows us to track and that is a way of sort of surveying How this is being addressed across all institutes and centers At the agency and depending upon how the institute or senator rector wants to deal with it And I think Eric has already given you some insight as to how we will likely deal with it You know, some will bring it right to the council others will have staff level discussions You know just depend on the institute center But partially relates to mark's question about where is the money going to come from? I mean that's going to be at the institutes and it's going to I mean it's going to be cases brought to councils We'll certainly bring it to council, you know, where are these near misses and then we're going to have to make decisions Okay, if we want to give the money to these These sets of grants going to have to come from somewhere We'll ask you hard questions about what are we not going to fund if we're going to fund these So but we'll have tools to identify them And and we're going to be given I don't know targets might be too hard of a word But just well we want to try to do this corporately across NIH everybody's got to contribute to try to get Yeah, I mean we have a sort of an estimate of what each ic would need to contribute. Yeah, our 200 seems like a modest number. Um, I understand you're just beginning this What are your what are your targets in the future? So if if you steady state Um, a total of 400 over the next five years that gets you to a steady state of 2000 ish And interestingly enough that leaven paper leaven and leaven paper argued for roughly that level But again, they're looking at all of science and we want to focus in on biomedical research, so But we think we're in the right order of magnitude for sure Yes, it is a modest number if you think about it But as as eric said, it comes down to do we fund this or do we fund that? So however modest the overall aggregate number is It always comes down to do we do this or do we do that last word to val Thanks for that presentation very interesting Uh, I got stuck on one slide where you said, uh, it's harder to get a first grant than it is a renewal And in my career one of the things I've been most proud of or was at some point was that I took clinical well-trained clinical mds And helped them get basic science our one In my experience And and I was pleased with that in my experience They had difficulty getting a first renewal So i'm wondering if that slide included Looked at first renewals separately. Yeah. No, thank you for for raising that clarifying point There is no question the first competitive renewal is the most difficult It is the subsequent type twos that get easier and easier with time And when you're out to you know years 55 through 59 It's a piece of cake So that was an aggregate of all type twos if we Parced it out. You're quite right. The first competitive renewal will be very difficult So is there any uh thought of looking at that? Uh, so the so that so we are now flagging this as the early established investigators That's precisely the cohort that make up that second 200 grouping that that I just referred And so and that's the kind of examples that'll be flagged and I wouldn't be surprised if we're bringing to council for a separate discussion Okay, thank you, larry Uh, as you could tell a very relevant discussion both at an each level, but also because we will I'm sure be tackling this within our own Sweet of instead of grants that we have to consider and now you can layer on this what's trying to be accomplished more broadly So thank you larry. Thanks for coming and I'll turn it back to Rudy Okay, we're a little bit behind schedule. Uh, how about if we try to reconvene at 1 15 new council members just grab onto veteran and find your way to the cafeteria