Nifty Things from Open Mike

NIH’s Rock Talk is now Open Mike, a blog by Dr. Michael Lauer, the Deputy Director for Extramural Research. He and his team have been posting some cool stuff over the last couple of months:

Lab Size: Is Bigger Better? A video from the director of NIGMS comes to the conclusion that a diverse variety of small labs offers greater possibility for breakthroughs and papers than a small collection of very large labs, and he has statistics to prove it. Particularly interesting is the assertion that a PI’s first $200k of funding will produce an average of four papers, while adding that $200k to a lab that’s already funded to the tune of $400k will only produce one more paper than that PI’s lab would have anyway.

Changes Afoot. Starting in May, NIH applications will have new requirements relating to enhanced rigor and reproducibility, among other changes and updates.

Indirect Costs Make You Nuts? In her last blog entry for Rock Talk, Dr. Rockey put up a presentation on how indirect costsare calculated and where they actually go (i.e., how they figure out how much of your money doesn’t actually go to your research).

Speak Your Mind. Staff from the office Extramural Research answer questions and comments posed in the blog comments. They update about once a week, and it’s worth checking in now and then to hear the first word about new policies, changes to rules and regulations (and application requirements), and perspective on why NIH does some of the things it does.