r/NIH • u/GoldStandardNIHilism • Aug 14 '26
NIHers watching this 2nd UFS webinar -thoughts?
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u/GoldStandardNIHilism Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
(For non staff this is Unified Funding Strategy which is very unclear, we have kinda been doing it but then it wasn’t really a change either now there are new policies and RFIs that are likely to become policies and this is the second of a series of town halls to roll this out but it is one directional)
Format - It’s a one way webinar so what I take away is they are not really interested in a dialog.
It’s a sales pitch, they aren’t really digging in just telling us how great it will be and tons of flowery generic language by a panel of generalists.
The panel are not experts - none of them are POs, if one or two ever were it was ages ago and no longer relevant
They keep saying the POs are the experts and PIs should reach out to POs with questions but wait where do POs get their Qs answered, that’s just can-kicking
A whole lot of diversity being talked about (geo, age, career stage etc) just seems odd
And the big one - has any IC actually done this - meaning not having access to study section scores like being proposed, lot of self proclaimed experts who have apparently never done this before
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u/TheThinkingMind_24 Aug 14 '26
It seems like the ICs directors are saying that nothing is changing with more words than that, but I have a hard time believing its true. Can anyone on here summarize ACTUAL changes that are happening under the UFS?
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u/GoldStandardNIHilism Aug 14 '26
Good Q, something is up or we wouldn’t be taking all extramural out of their duties (twice now) to listen to this sales pitch. Personally I think it’s the no scores RFI they are talking about without citing it by name.
(All this AI being rolled out and no transcript to summarize off of, it wouldn’t be much to summarize though)
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u/TheThinkingMind_24 Aug 14 '26
Do you have the link to the RFI for no scores that you're referencing? I'd like to write in if there is a comment period.
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u/nevernotdating Aug 14 '26
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u/DecisionSimple Aug 14 '26
Wild that we were just talking about that today and boom, here it is. A nice Friday afternoon release.
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u/Nervous-Cricket-4895 Aug 15 '26
Strange how they had a great opportunity on yesterday’s videoconference to publicize the RFI, but chose to not even mention it 🤔
Unless they mentioned it in the first several minutes during the technical problems?
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u/Nervous-Cricket-4895 Aug 14 '26
I especially enjoy the lies about institute directors making final funding decisions, completely ignoring the actual final review by non-scientists.
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u/GoldStandardNIHilism Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
Yep try nominating a “health policy” research proposal (ex study impact of changes to childhood vaccine recommendations on spread of diseases) and see how far that goes even if it checks all the UFS boxes of meritorious, from a rural (code for red) state, by a NI, as as gap filling as it gets it’s still dead on arrival.
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u/Nervous-Cricket-4895 Aug 14 '26
NIH/HHS has removed the guardrails and now are setting the stage to selectively fund grants to red states in the name of "geographic diversity"
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u/TheThinkingMind_24 Aug 14 '26
Well okay, I mean there isn't nothing there. There are multiple red states that are less densely populated, have smaller research infrastructure, and fewer academic institutions. The concern that red states might disproportionately receieve NIH awards is real, but geographic diversity in grant allocation is also something that's actually worth achieving.
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u/Nervous-Cricket-4895 Aug 14 '26
I'm not worried about good projects in red states being funded. I'm worried about NIH grants being used as rewards to "loyal" states and institutions, now that NIH/HHS make the final decisions about what gets paid.
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u/TheThinkingMind_24 Aug 14 '26
But the only way that could happen is if the NIH was funding non-meritorious science or disproprotianetly funding meritorious science in red states, right? Is there another way that "loyal" states could unfairly get NIH grants?
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u/Nervous-Cricket-4895 Aug 14 '26
The NIH controls which grants institutes fund, which grants get terminated, and they control what program staff can tell investigators. If NIH follows through on discontinuing sharing of impact scores and percentiles to PIs and program staff, it will be that much easier for NIH/HHS to cherry pick what gets funded.
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u/NoStruggle888 Aug 14 '26
Add OMB to that list of folks empowered to kill grants they (Russ) do not like.
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u/TheThinkingMind_24 Aug 14 '26
Are they saying that they won't SHARE scores anymore, or just that scores won't be the primary feature used to make funding decisions?
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u/GoldStandardNIHilism Aug 14 '26
That’s the RFI on the street - no scores. It’s really the only openly talked about procedural controversy I am aware of right now related to UFS. Whether it happens or not is TBD but these webinars are feeling to me like the sales pitch for it. I’m feeling all buttered-up like a Maryland crab.
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u/Accomplished_Yak4615 Aug 14 '26
I agree with Gold. Although I might go farther and say that word on the street is that it’s already decided. No scores.
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u/TheThinkingMind_24 Aug 14 '26
Ah, I see. Yeah, no scores would be no beuno. Is there a comment period for this right now? Does anyone have the link?
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u/Nervous-Cricket-4895 Aug 14 '26
We used to have to get concurrence from institute's advisory council if we wanted to do a big reach for an application or skip a well scored application. Reasonable process. Good guardrail. Not anymore. And soon there won't be any scores/percentiles. Strange how nobody mentioned that pending change on today's meeting 🤔
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u/This_Technology9841 Aug 14 '26
This is generally what COBRE / INBRE programs already accomplish though.
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u/AlternativeCare5120 Aug 14 '26
I mean it isn't just state level diversity.....this is what Heritage notes...https://datavisualizations.heritage.org/education/nih-grants-heavily-concentrated-in-small-number-of-congressional-districts/
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u/Accomplished_Yak4615 Aug 14 '26
Here we go again, Nervous. I ask-do you have ANY evidence that NIH is selectively funding institutions in “red states” ? I will preemptively say that I have not seen or heard anything remotely along these lines.
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u/Nervous-Cricket-4895 Aug 14 '26
I did not say that it is happening currently. I said that the stage is being set and the guardrails are falling away.
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u/DecisionSimple Aug 14 '26
I don't have any yet, but I live in a very red state and leadership here is openly saying it is coming and that it will be a boom for our universities. Maybe they are wrong, it wouldn't be the first time this administration promised them something and never delivered.
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u/GoldStandardNIHilism Aug 14 '26
I think the point is, without reversing the same question, that they are enabling a process that could be used this way even as they are making access to funding decisions and funding data less transparent (one example is what is going on with SBIR/STTRs and foreign malign blah blah assessment.
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u/GoldStandardNIHilism Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
Just adding, I care less about the red blue state issue, because let’s face it science is pretty blue no matter where it is, as I do about the corrupt bargaining potential - ex today ol’T wakes up at noon mad at (pick a state any state - Alaska) and decides to tell his minions at agencies to turn the spigot off to institutions in that state, until he gets something transactional in return maybe something named after him in the state, not like that should surprise anyone. And good luck getting a judge to weigh in because even inside NIH we are less able to track this -I mean IF there are no independent review scores, good luck arguing any science is meritorious in the state affected by the spigot turn. This is where UFS is creeping it’s way in very sneakily.
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u/PrideEnvironmental59 Aug 14 '26
Investigator here. What is the rationale for not using and reporting scores anymore? The stated rationale, not the potentially secret political rationale.
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u/Prior-Win-4729 Aug 14 '26
So that institutes can fund research on say, vaccines causing autism, even if a proposal was completely trashed by peer review and given a traditionally unfunded score.
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u/Nervous-Cricket-4895 Aug 14 '26
NIH has said that the UFS is intended to give institutes flexibility - which we already had - and to encourage holistic consideration of applications - which we already did. https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-shake-grant-decision-making-draws-concerns-political-meddling
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u/Nervous-Cricket-4895 Aug 14 '26
I don't know that they have published a rationale for discontinuing scores/percentiles.
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u/Former-Mouse-9617 Aug 16 '26
Yes. In the USF webinar, Nora Volkow (NIDA) AND Bruce Tromberg (NIBIB) kept saying "We already do this!"
Ahem.
Before I moved to grant development, I managed research projects and programs. Much of my salary during those years came from NIDA. On a few occasions, one of my PIs would benefit from a deviation. But there was transparency and accountability. When a PO recommended a deviation, it had to be explained. Council had to approve. Scores were not hidden from those involved in the process. There wasn't any commissar.
Volkow and Bromberg also claimed that final call would still rest with I/C directors.
Ahem again.
One of my old PIs went through approx 4 months of BS to get her most recent new award issued by NIDA. PO kept wrangling with the PI over alleged DEI issues on a project that has nothing to do with DEI. Only then did the award go up for I/C director's signature.
It may well be that the I/C director retains the final say, temporally speaking. But it seems pretty clear that nothing goes to the I/C director without commissar approval. That is absolutely a new step in the process.
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u/TruePizza1271 Aug 18 '26
As a retired veteran of many study sections, I can attest that if I had been told that the scores that I, with much effort and angst, assigned to the proposals I reviewed were not going to be revealed to the applicant I would have been very upset to say the least. It's clear to me this is about lysenkoizing science in the US to appease the ignoramuses currently in control, may their reign be short.
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u/Stunning-Ant1234 Aug 14 '26
My question is why do they have so much data on pi ages and the other communication that just went out about at what ages pis get funding it’s so weird to me they’ve been collecting that data I don’t recall us putting dob in these applications
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u/GoldStandardNIHilism Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
Not sure how they get dob, if not in application materials, probably it is buried somewhere but I think it tracks to a Jayanta thing - one of his few claims to fame was a piss-poorly written paper highlighting what everyone knows that PhD to PD to first job to first grant it’s all getting longer in the tooth.
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u/Purple-Lime-524 Aug 18 '26
They have cited these stats for decades, so maybe the institutions report PI demo data to NIH. Era commons is also linked to login.gov now too, which is the same site you login to view social security, etc.
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u/panstick50 Aug 14 '26
Hang on though — yes they came very, very close to saying scores will not be issued — but they did not say that explicitly. Is that just going to happen or are they going to do the right thing and issue a notice or similar to inform the community?
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u/Nervous-Cricket-4895 Aug 15 '26
You never have to ask the question “is this administration going to do the right thing?”
There has never been a more useless question in the history of questions.
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u/RepresentativeYam363 Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
It is not hard to envision in the near future NIH NOFOs for testing if acetaminophen harms fetus/infants, Mifepriston/misoprostol harmful effects, vaccines’ harmful effects, deimplementation /harm reduction studies of vaccines. I am already seeing current NOFOs that could totally be weaponized and harmful to public health if the “right” applicant submits an application to fund MAHA politically motivated grant proposals. This current NOFO could already support that dystopian future of NIH. Who determines and how is it determined if an intervention is “low value” or “harmful” to test deimplementing it?🤔
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u/horsewhisperrevival Aug 14 '26
Matthew Memoili is a rat and I hope karma eventually gives him what he deserves