I've been funded off an NIH training grant (T32) at two different points previously, and I'm applying to be put on another training grant in the future.
My participation level in these training grants has been, at maximum, to write a paragraph of application explaining why I should be on one, and another page or so each year I'm on the grant to update NIH on my progress. Ridiculously easy.
But the person administering the training grant seems to do an awful lot of work. They write the grant, pick trainees, and generally deal with the flow of funds. My question is, what's in it for them? It seems like a giant hassle for very little professional benefit--perhaps you can stick one of your own trainees on the grant, but beyond that it just looks like scut work. Yet the two training grants I've been on have been administered by high-ranking PIs (and sniffing around T32s at other institutions on CRISP, this doesn't appear to be uncommon).
Do you just get departmental brownie points for writing/running a T32? Is it the sort of service activity that gets you out of jail for some other service activity, like being on a search committee? Is it just out of the greatness of your heart? (And if so, how to explain the presence of some T32 administrators who are well known not to have hearts at all?)
I'm grateful to have this funding, but can't imagine that "postdoc gratitude" inspires a lot of would-be grant-writers. So I have to assume there is something I don't understand about the apparently selfless action of these folks. Internet, please explain.
15 years ago
18 comments:
It means you get to pay post-docs with money other than from R01s.
But you don't get to fund all of your own postdocs off the T32, right?
it also increases the overall funding profile of your department, which can make you look better on paper to your university.
For most people, it makes it easier to fund predocs and postdocs in your area. Some (many) of them will be yours, but others will be with your colleagues in your area, which will provide you with interesting people to talk to and collaborate with.
But my department just started assigning space based on the total indirect costs you bring in, and announced that training grant directors get credit for the indirect costs from the training grant. (Which are huge relative to an R01 or two.)
We've got a training grant for the mudphuders, but really general ones. My institution also doesn't award any significant service credit for it, from what I hear. So yeah... I think *generally* if the system isn't set up with an extra reward faculty don't actually do it.
This may be institution-specific, but isn't it considered bad form to get a training grant and then use it to fund all your own people? Is the hassle of administering it really worth the return of funding, say, just one of your postdocs?
Arlenna, that would seem to be a good reason for junior faculty to write one. But all the ones I've dealt with have been written/administered by quite senior faculty, who I would think have less incentive to "look better" at that point.
Qaz, now THAT's a motivation!
I don't think training grants are given to junior faculty. All of the ones I know (at several institutions, so figure we're talking on the order of n=15 or so) are administered by senior faculty.
Yes, the space thing is motivation, but that's new and it can't have been an issue for any of the training grants I've seen. One potential motivation is that becoming a full professor requires proof of grant-getting beyond R01s (at least here at BigStateResearchU). But I think the main motivation is community.
For a lot of senior faculty, the goal is not just to run a good lab, but to be part of a good community. (Why else, for example, would anyone be a department chair?) I think the real motivation is that senior faculty want a community of colleagues with whom to collaborate and discuss. As one example of this, think about "retention packages" given to senior faculty, which usually entail a faculty line or two, not directly helping the senior person, but providing them an exciting junior colleague with whom to interact.
PS. (Wanting to have a good community is true of a lot of junior faculty as well, but junior faculty have to be more concerned with their own survival. Junior faculty are much less likely to have the time [or skillz] to manage something like a training grant.)
At our place, the goal of having your department look better on paper has the same outcome as qaz talked about: institutional support is stronger for the departments bringing in more indirect costs, so the more money you have in your departmental grant portfolio the more resources you (as a dept.) can bargain for with the Dean etc. It makes the difference for things like renovation, new buildings, etc. where I am.
What PP said, taking even one or two postdoc salaries off your R01s is huge. And remember that you can't necessarily just write more R01s because people start raising the eyebrow at how much $$ you have. A T32 app sidesteps the perception issue.
And yes, senior investigators sometimes do things for the general good of the training environment, etc that cannot be so easily tied to direct personal benefit. shocked?
Now, lest you think I've lost my cynical edge, there is an additional consideration. The Director of big mech grants and training grants gains a good deal of leverage over the other participants in the project through the power of the purse. Think about two junior PIs in the department, struggling to get the lab going and the first R01 funded. One training grant postdoc slot is available. Think the immediate future of those junior PIs is affected by which one manages to land a free postdoc?
I guess this makes sense, I just didn't realize that it would be sometimes easier to get/run a training grant than to get another $50K or whatever for your postdoc via other routes (R01s, NRSAs, etc).
The leverage aspect, both with the university/department and with other PIs, makes some sense too...it just feels a little nebulous compared to the day-to-day of "must write my own grants and get papers out" etc so I was/am surprised that PIs are willing to devote time to it. I don't know anything about how long a T32 app is, nor the funding rate of such things, which I suppose matters a lot also in how willing people would be to apply.
I think the other question this all raises for me is: why is this a good mechanism for funding postdocs and grad students? It seems kind of extraneous, given that people could just as well apply for more directed funding. Why not just put all the training grant money into funding NRSAs, both pre-doc and post-doc, if the goal is....to fund trainees?
And then you wouldn't require additional study sections or whatever to review T32s, you could save time and just set a higher payline on NRSA apps. Not to mention, NRSAs force students and postdocs to, you know, think about their data and plans in a way that training grants don't. (Alternatively, if you think that time is misspent, then why not abolish NRSAs and be more generous with training grant money....) They just seem to have overlapping domains, and the T32 seems like it could encourage cronyism/sucking up to the bigshots who are able to write them.
(That said, I've had only beneficial experiences with training grants and their administrators, just saying as how it could easily be otherwise if the local blowhard is the one who has the power.)
As DrugMonkey said, taking a couple of students off of your R01s is huge. Even one or two postdocs makes a surprising difference. But an important thing about T32s that are important to recognize is that they are not actually directed. Instead they are topical. Think "drug addiction" rather than "opiate effects on the viability of slicing mangos". So, they provide much more freedom for a student to pursue an interesting project (instead of having to justify the research to NIH first, either in an R01 [by PI] or NRSA [by trainee]).
And DrJ/MrsH - the transition from "must write grant to survive" to thinking departmentally re building communities is one of the (secret) transitions that happens from junior PI to senior PI. [Just as the transition from postdoc to junior PI entails a host of unexpected job skills, so, apparently does the transition from junior to senior PI.*]
* I'm right at that transition and am startled to see that there's another sideways job transition including a new skill-set to learn.
Ok, thanks for the edumacation... it's really helpful to understand the PI perspective as a postdoc, because there are so many opaque decisions otherwise!
the other redundant/rich get richer story here is that individual fellowships (Fs) are probably easier to get in the same environments that Ts are. at both pre and postdoc levels I've quickly transitioned from T to F. it would make more sense (to me) to give Ts to poor or young but promising departments, where trainees might be at a competitive disadvantage for Fs. but I guess NIH funding is more of a snowballing meritocracy.
Perhaps some of us actually care about the quality of science going on at our own institutions...
It is a lot of work but the friends I know who run these programs: 1) think they are making a difference both for students/postdocs and for the institution, 2) Appreciate that its important, and provides them with an outlet for administrative urges short of being a Dept. Chair, 3) get paid a small administrative supplement to compensate them for the hard work
Mark P
Just an FYI: Putting a training grant application is no small matter, and obtaining a competing renewal carries a significant but manageable administrative burden (if the PI plans well in advance) on the shoulders of the PI and his/her staff - for a return of a maximum of 8% indirect costs to the applicant institution (and maybe the PI's dept, if their lucky). The Training Tables that must be filled out can be extensive, and require follow up information regarding the success of past trainees for years...perhaps over a decade or so. The overall success rate of T32 training grant applications beats R01s, although some years have been tougher than others, with success rates ranging from a high of 65.2% (2000) to a low of 42.8% (2005); the NIH RePort table R1033 states that the success rate for T32s was 48.3%. So, to answer your question, from one perspective, a PI writes a training grant for a variety of reasons, as discussed by others in this blog, but almost never because it is easy - but it sure beats the odds of trying to obtain support for a pre or post doc via an R01.
I suspect they can put administrative salaries on it. In the case of non-medical departments, summer salary.
I suspect they can put administrative salaries on it. In the case of non-medical departments, summer salary.
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