Former NIH Director Zerhouni Gives Recommendations for Choosing His Replacement
December 12th, 2008Posted by: admin
Nature News has an interview with former National Institutes of Health Director Elias Zerhouni, who left the post October 31 after serving for most of the Bush Administration. While some will either smile or tear their hair at his implicit criticism of the administration’s stem cell and research funding policies, I think the most interesting parts of the interview relate to whomever will replace him as NIH Director:
What should President-elect Obama be looking for in your successor?
It’s very important right now to have someone who truly understands the reality of life in academic institutions, especially in the context of an economic crisis. I think you absolutely need someone who has had management experience. I don’t think the person should be political. Disease knows no politics.
The other issue here is that that scientists should not be representative of any particular subtrend but should be open to a variety of approaches to science. I would say someone who is sensitive to the younger generations of scientists. I also believe it’s essential to be able to develop excellent relationships with Congress.
The other last but very important point is it has to be a great communicator. Do not become an advocate for one aspect of NIH because you want to be well regarded by your constituency, but represent all constituencies in the most effective way possible.
I think this advice is equally valid for whomever will be the president’s science adviser. I also recommend that people read the sections of the interview about the financing of research and its impact on younger researchers. The National Science Foundation should take notice.
December 13th, 2008 at 9:24 am
The comments on funding for younger researchers were interesting:
“I feel like it’s these established folks who have the political power and who basically penalize and discriminate against new entrants. I see it in the scoring behaviour of the peer-review panels. Every time we try to help the young investigators, the scoring panels penalize them by giving them worse and worse scores. I have the data to show that.”
If the goal is to award a greater share of research dollars to younger researchers, isn’t the obvious solution to just stop inviting the “established folks who have the political power” to serve on peer-review panels?
December 13th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Good suggestion Curt. I would at least think inviting more young researchers to sit on those panels could help alleviate the problems. As narrow as research specializations can get, I can’t help but wonder if blind reviewing is actually possible in some fields. Sure, you don’t know the name on the proposal, but it sounds just like what you know Dr. X is doing over at University Y.
December 13th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Actually, I thought a bit more about this. Faculty have told me in the past that in their experience, getting asked to serve on an NIH study section (which review the grant applications) was often viewed as a burdensome commitment. At least in some cases faculty accept the request to serve on a study section only because they themselves have an NIH grant, and thus feel some measure of duty to the NIH. If this effect is in fact pervasive, it seems like an auto-reinforcing mechanism to favor grant applications from people who already have grants.
It is a difficult problem to address because, according to what various PIs have told me, finding people willing to serve on study sections is difficult.