Scientists are no doubt waiting anxiously while senior leaders at NIH re-evaluate the “two strikes” policy that was instituted in January 2009, which stipulates that applicants have only one additional chance to win funding if they are rejected on their first try. MSKCC’s own Robert Benezra, a cancer biologist, led a reform effort in 2011 by presenting a letter from more than 2,300 scientists asking NIH to reinstate the three strikes rule.

The idea behind the change back in 2009 was to reduce circumstances where reviewers showed a tendency, whether it was intentional or not, to grant funding to amended repeat applications, which NIH felt created a less meritorious award system for original applicants. They also argued that the higher number of repeat submissions caused more of a delay in reviewing applications and awarding funds, which in turn impacted the pace of scientific research.

The problem with the two strikes rule, opponents say, is that having fewer chances to have your application reviewed means that not only you are at the mercy of peer reviewers who may reject your application for less than exemplary reasons, but that it is “impossible for peer reviewers to discriminate between a proposal that scores in the top 10% of applicants and one that scores, say, at 19%”, so excellent proposals are randomly rejected, leaving them with only one more chance at funding. They also defended the three strikes policy, saying that young scientists suffer more under the pressure of the two strikes rule since they have less grant writing experience and a smaller body of research to fall back on if their applications are rejected, making it more difficult for them to substantially change the aims of their proposed research in order to resubmit.  Needless to say, the stakes are higher with only two submissions allowed, and opponents believe this endangers and discourages the crop of new scientists emerging in the field.

The NIH is expected to makes its decision within the next several weeks.