P.I.: LUTZ, Richard A. Proposal #: 9529819 Keeping in mind that the program weighs secondary considerations in the individual award/no-award decisions, it is still informative to look at the numerical rating statistics to have some feeling for the level of competition for available funds. For the regular panels, award rates are currently about 15% of the total proposals received. We have made recent efforts to let the reviewers and panels know clearly what the general level of competition for funds is like, expecting that evaluations of individuals proposals and discrimination among proposal will be influenced to a degree by this information. In this panel, 50% of the proposals had average numerical mail review rankings of very good or better (~2.0 on a scale where 1=Excellent and 5=Poor). With the pressures of increased costs of doing research (and increased dollar requests in proposals), the directive to make longer-term awards, the consistently large number of proposals submitted to the regular panels, and with no increases in funds to support research in areas not identified as strategic initiatives, the Program expects that we will continue to face the unpleasant reality of not recommending many important, worthy and high-rated proposals for support by the Foundation.
