Choices
By Ruth SoRelle, M.P.H.
Once a year, I sit on a grant review committee for a small non-profit organization in Houston. About 10 of us gather around a table and discuss grants submitted to us by people in hospitals, medical schools and universities in the city.
About six months previously, we had sent out a request for proposals that outlined the topics in which we were interested and the goals that we hoped the research the organization fund would achieve. We set a page-limit and a format on the grant proposals, and wait for them to come in.
The numbers vary with the year and the topic. One thing, however, remains the same.
They are all creative. They all deal with important issues in people's lives. And we have the money to fund only one.
We grade them by a variety of criteria. We look at the person proposing the study and that individual's academic and research track record. We try to determine if the institution approves the research and supports its implementation.
It's not an easy task. They are always good proposals dealing with serious topics. Some are better than others, but none can be dismissed out of hand. Finally, we agonize. Which one is the best?
We do not always agree, and then it comes down to numbers. Each of us has given the work a number grade. We average those figures and come out with one on top.
The rest of the proposals have to go to the shredder. We look at that forlorn little pile and shake our heads. If only there were more money.
I'm sure that most grant review committees – even those at the National Institutes of Health – feel similarly. Definitely, there are some proposals that are better than others, and if you have to rank them, the cream will rise. But there is value in what is underneath. At the federal level, as money gets tighter, only the crème de la crème finds itself with the money in the end. As a person who works at Baylor College of Medicine, I know our researchers work hard to produce good grant applications for funding work about which they feel passionate.
I wonder. What good ideas are we leaving on the table because there is too little money? Whom are we discouraging from entering research altogether? I hope we are making good choices. I hope everyone is.
