{"doi":"10.1016/j.xjon.2021.10.064","title":"Commentary: How do you get your grant refunded?","abstract":"Central MessageProductivity during the funding period is a major factor, although only one factor, in getting an RO1 grant refunded.See Article page 162.Obtaining an RO1 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a rite of passage for many research scientists and academic physicians. Unfortunately, it is a goal that most do not attain. If one is fortunate enough to be awarded such a grant from the NIH, it is not much easier to keep it past the initial 3 to 5 years than it was getting it in the first place. When the review panel, or “study section,” evaluates the merit of a renewal application, there are factors that are taken into consideration. These include the impact, novelty, and clinical relevance of the proposal; the research team the principal investigator has put together; the approach to the problem being investigated; the rigor of the experiments; and how successful the principal investigator (PI) has been during the funding period to complete the aims of the initial grant proposal. If the PI has not written many papers that have been published or accepted to peer-reviewed journals, it is not very likely that the PI will be funded for another cycle. Even if the PI has written a relatively large number of papers in excellent journals, there is no assurance that the newly submitted renewal grant application will receive a sufficiently high priority score to obtain the renewal grant.Wang and colleagues1Wang H. Bajaj S.S. Heiler J.C. Krishnan A. Williams K.M. Woo Y.J. et al.Quantitative goals for research output and scholarly impact to enhance basic science R01 grant renewal for cardiothoracic surgeons.J Cardiovasc Thorac Surg Open. 2022; 9: 162-175Scopus (5) Google Scholar have written an interesting and timely paper correlating the chances of getting an RO1 grant application renewed with the number and impact of the papers the PI has published. This study confirms what some suspect, that the more productive investigators have the best chance of maintaining their NIH funding. It certainly makes sense that the most motivated, hard-working, knowledgeable, and scientifically inclined cardiothoracic surgeons will be the most productive. Since productivity and completion of the specific aims is one major factor reviewers use to judge grant applications, it makes sense that the surgeons publishing more papers in high-impact journals will be funded more frequently than those who publish only a few papers in low-impact journals or do not publish much at all. Furthermore, someone who is able to put a concise, innovative, and well-planned-out grant application into 12 pages probably has some good writing skills. These are the individuals who generally get their first grant funded and those who have the best chance of keeping it for another funding cycle or two. Wang and colleagues have done a nice job confirming this. However, productivity is only one factor, albeit a major factor, in renewing an RO1 grant. Productivity during the funding period is a major factor, although only one factor, in getting an RO1 grant refunded. Productivity during the funding period is a major factor, although only one factor, in getting an RO1 grant refunded. See Article page 162. See Article page 162. Obtaining an RO1 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a rite of passage for many research scientists and academic physicians. Unfortunately, it is a goal that most do not attain. If one is fortunate enough to be awarded such a grant from the NIH, it is not much easier to keep it past the initial 3 to 5 years than it was getting it in the first place. When the review panel, or “study section,” evaluates the merit of a renewal application, there are factors that are taken into consideration. These include the impact, novelty, and clinical relevance of the proposal; the research team the principal investigator has put together; the approach to the problem being investigated; the rigor of the experiments; and how successful the ","journal":"JTCVS Open","year":2022,"id":305951,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9536,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":371889,"name":"Frank W. 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