ABSTRACT

Purpose

To analyze trends in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in ophthalmology and characterize its distribution to departments and principal investigators (PIs) affiliated with U.S. medical schools.

Design

Longitudinal descriptive analysis.

Methods

We queried publically accessible data from the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research and NIH RePORTER to determine annual funding trends in ophthalmology from 2009 to 2020. To characterize the distribution of funding, we further ranked the top departments and principal investigators (PIs). Department websites (among other online resources) were utilized to extract characteristics of the latter cohort.

Results

After adjusting for inflation, we observed a modest 9% increase in median NIH funding to academic ophthalmology departments between 2009 and 2020. In the same time period, among individual PIs, this translated to a 9% decline in median funding. Our results among both departments and PIs indicated a persistent inequality in NIH funding. In 2020, 10 ophthalmology departments received 44% of total funding, which is consistent with findings from prior years. Our ranking of PIs by average annual NIH funding indicated a disproportionate representation of males (76%) and PhDs (58%) in the top 50.

Conclusions

Overall, the results of this investigation suggest NIH funding remains limited for individual investigators, reflecting the increasingly competitive nature of the grant application process. Systemic alterations will be required to reverse these trends. If not accomplished, nascent and established researchers alike will continue to endure challenges in obtaining and maintaining funding.

中文翻译：

---

美国国立卫生研究院资助美国医学院眼科的趋势

摘要

目的

分析美国国立卫生研究院 (NIH) 眼科资助的趋势，并描述其对隶属于美国医学院的部门和主要研究人员 (PI) 的分配情况。

设计

纵向描述性分析。

方法

我们查询了来自蓝岭医学研究所和 NIH RePORTER 的公开数据，以确定 2009 年至 2020 年眼科的年度资助趋势。为了描述资金的分配情况，我们进一步对顶级部门和首席研究员 (PI) 进行了排名。部门网站（以及其他在线资源）被用来提取后者的特征。

结果

在调整通货膨胀后，我们观察到 2009 年至 2020 年间，NIH 对学术眼科部门的资助中位数适度增加了 9%。在同一时期，在个别 PI 中，这转化为资助中位数下降了 9%。我们在部门和 PI 中的结果表明 NIH 资金的持续不平等。2020 年，10 个眼科获得了总资助的 44%，这与往年的调查结果一致。我们按 NIH 年度平均资助对 PI 的排名表明，前 50 名中男性（76%）和博士（58%）的比例不成比例。

结论

总体而言，这项调查的结果表明 NIH 的资金对于个别调查人员来说仍然有限，这反映了拨款申请过程中竞争日益激烈的性质。要扭转这些趋势，需要进行系统性的改变。如果没有完成，新生和成熟的研究人员将继续在获得和维持资金方面面临挑战。