National Institutes of Health Support for Clinical Emergency Care Research, 2011 to 2014

Study objectiveI report on the results of a portfolio analysis of National Institutes of Health (NIH) support for clinical emergency care research.MethodsA targeted query was created with data-mining techniques that accessed the NIH database for 2011 to 2014. The search was constructed to have a clinical focus; animal and bench research projects, as well as career development grants, were excluded. The search results were manually reviewed for appropriateness and then analyzed.ResultsSix-hundred eighty-eight applications were analyzed. During the study period, the number of new emergency care projects submitted to NIH increased from 62 in 2011 to 153 in 2014. A total of 112 new applications were funded for $100 million, with an overall success rate of 23%. The total amount of support for both new and existing projects during the 4-year study period was $263 million. One third of the funded principal investigators were emergency medicine faculty, and their success rate for R01 funding was twice the NIH average.ConclusionEmergency care research makes up 0.7% of NIH spending on new research project grants. The success rate is high for emergency medicine principal investigators conducting clinical work. The overall success rate for emergency medicine R01s is similar to that of other clinical specialties.