I'm not sure if a previous attempt to post this worked, since I sent it
via a different approach.  Also, in the previous attempt I was unable
to include a subject line, so bearing in mind the admonitions of previous
posters, I'm trying again.  Sorry if this is a dup.
______________________________________________________

In response to several questions about UCHC's program, and such programs in
general:

1)  To "Speechless", UCHC's program has been in place for almost 20 years.
The source of support is UCHC "funds" which could conceivably be generated
in a variety of ways, e.g., clinical income, recovered indirect costs, etc.
Practically speaking, however, the amount allocated for such programs is
generally tied to a percentage of the income from indirect cost recovery.
The program was set up because of strong faculty input about the need for
such a program, as well as the level.

2)  Regarding matching funds, our equpment and new faculty start-up programs
have always had a matching requirement.  The source of this matching may be
from departmental or school resources, existing grants, discretionery funds
available to the applicant, etc.  From our "program's" perspective, the source
of the matching support is irrelevant, as long as it is there.

3)  Regarding the payment of peer reviewers, the question has never come
up before.  We have never had a problem with reviewers agreeing to read and
comment upon a proposal, irregardless of whether they are from UCHC or outside
the institution.  It's an intriguing point, however!  Do peer reviewers who
are paid an honorarium do a better job in reviewing a proposal?  My guess is
that for $100 you'd get the same type of variability in review quality as
we get for nothing.

***I HAVE A QUESTION FOR THE NET ON THIS TOPIC***

Has any institution with a significant intramural grants program ever conducted
an in depth analysis of the effectiveness of their program(s)?  Since I assume
that the objectives of each institution's program may vary, you'd have to
evaluate the effectiveness based upon what the goals of the program are.  At
UCHC, for example, our emergency grants program is designed to keep labs
together during funding hiatus, and to help in reestablishing extramural
funding.  Since the endpoint is extramural funding, we say this program has
a "success rate" of 63%.  OTOH, our new faculty program is only 38%
"successful", but this statistic is misleading since sometimes recipients of
funding leave UCHC within a short time after receiving such grants (being a
health center we have a lot of movement through our junior clinical ranks).
We even conducted an extensive "single-blind" study of faculty attitudes about
the importance of these programs (I'm sure you can guess the outcome of that
survey).

I would be very interested in learning about approaches to evaluate the
effectiveness of such programs, criteria used, methodologies, etc. at other
institutions.  In this era of continually shrinking resources, I have to
work very hard to justify the continuance of such programs.

L

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Leonard P. Paplauskas    Assistant Vice President for Research     |
203-679-3173             University of Connecticut Health Center   |
FAX 679-2670             Farmington, CT   06030-5355               |
                                                                   |
xxxxxx@neuron.uchc.edu                                           |
xxxxxx@sun1.uchc.edu                                           |
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