Promotional language and the adoption of innovative ideas in science.

How are the merits of innovative ideas communicated in science? Here, we conduct semantic analyses of grant application success with a focus on scientific promotional language, which may help to convey an innovative idea's originality and significance. Our analysis attempts to surmount the limitations of prior grant studies by examining the full text of tens of thousands of both funded and unfunded grants from three leading public and private funding agencies: the NIH, the NSF, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation, one of the world's largest private science funding foundations. We find a robust association between promotional language and the support and adoption of innovative ideas by funders and other scientists. First, a grant proposal's percentage of promotional language is associated with up to a doubling of the grant's probability of being funded. Second, a grant's promotional language reflects its intrinsic innovativeness. Third, the percentage of promotional language is predictive of the expected citation and productivity impact of publications that are supported by funded grants. Finally, a computer-assisted experiment that manipulates the promotional language in our data demonstrates how promotional language can communicate the merit of ideas through cognitive activation. With the incidence of promotional language in science steeply rising, and the pivotal role of grants in converting promising and aspirational ideas into solutions, our analysis provides empirical evidence that promotional language is associated with effectively communicating the merits of innovative scientific ideas.

Elements of successful NIH grant applications.

Is there a formula for a competitive NIH grant application? The Serenity Prayer may provide one: "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the ability to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." But how to tell the difference? In this Perspective, we provide an inclusive roadmap-elements of NIH funding. Collectively, we have over 30 y of peer review experience as NIH Scientific Review Officers in addition to over 30 y of program experience as NIH Program Officers. This article distills our NIH experience. We use Euclid's 13-book landmark, The Elements, as our template to humbly share what we learned. We have three specific aims: inform, guide, and motivate prospective applicants. We also address ways that support diversity and inclusion among applicants and young investigators in biomedical research. The elements we describe come from a wide range of sources. Some themes will be general. Some will be specific. All will be candid. The ultimate goal is a competitive application, serenity, and hopefully both.

A devastating blow: personal reflections on Argentina's scientific decline.

As an Argentine scientist, the defunding of CONICET and INTA feels like a blow to progress and our future. Despite free education, these cuts force talented researchers to seek opportunities abroad. Argentina's history of scientific achievement, from Nobel Prizes to COVID-19 vaccines, is at risk. Defunding science weakens our ability to solve problems and compete globally.

Efficacy of Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) grants to build research capacity in underrepresented states.

Federal funding for research has immediate and long-term economic impact. Since federal research funding is regionally concentrated and not geographically distributed, the benefits are not fully realized in some regions of the country. The Established (previously Experimental) Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) programs at several agencies, for example, the National Science Foundation, and the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program at the National Institutes of Health were created to increase competitiveness for funding in states with historically low levels of federal funding. The Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) award program is a component of the IDeA program. The CoBRE grants support research core facilities to develop research infrastructure. These grants also support the research projects of junior investigators, under the guidance of mentoring teams of senior investigators, to develop human resources at these institutions. Few studies have assessed the effectiveness of these programs. This study examines the investment and outcomes of the CoBRE grants from 2000 through 2022. The maturation of junior investigators into independently funded principal investigators is comparable to other mentoring programs supported by NIH. The investment in research cores resulted in substantial research productivity, measured by publications. Despite the successes of individual investigators and increased research infrastructure and productivity, the geographic distribution of federal and NIH research dollars has not changed. These results will be informative in consideration of policies designed to enhance the geographic distribution of federal research dollars.