Treatment of young investigators in the National Cancer Program.

To ascertain whether young investigators (those 35 years of age and under) receive equitable treatment in the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) peer review process, we analyzed recommendation and award rates for new traditional grant applicants for 3 fiscal years (nine cycles of review). The more than 4,500 applications studied showed markedly higher recommendation and award rates for younger investigators than for senior scientists; a peak award rate differential of 15% was reached. The study also revealed that young scientists submitted just one-fourth of all the traditional grant applications sent to NCI and received less than one-third of the funds awarded. These results were consistent throughout the National Institutes of Health. As a follow-up, survey results are reported that assess researchers' attitudes and perceptions of the young scientist's role in the current biomedical review system.