Federal Agencies to Allow Multiple PIs on Research Grants and Contracts

In a memo released on January 11, 2005, Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director John Marburger announced a revision of grant-making policy at federal agencies that will allow for two or more principal investigators (PIs) on research grants and contracts.

The action was the result of public comment gathered by the Research Business Models Subcommittee (RBM) of the National Science and Technology Council�s (NSTC) Committee on Science (the NSTC is a cabinet level council through which the Executive Office of the President coordinates science and technology policies across the federal government). The RBM seeks to encourage collaborative research and streamline the management of federal grant awards. In recent years, there has been increased emphasis on developing interdisciplinary research to address complex scientific problems. This shift from the typical lab structure has necessitated other changes in the field. The concern has been that without the usual measures of achievement present in single-investigator driven research, investigators participating in interdisciplinary projects could slow their career progress. These traditional measures include serving as the principal investigator on federal research grants and primary authorship on scientific papers. In fact, a recent study showed that scientists engaging in interdisciplinary projects were disproportionately graduate students, many of whom perceived their participation as being professionally risky in the long run (Rhoten and Parker 2004).

The expectation is that the new policy will acknowledge the contributions of PIs from multiple disciplines and provide formal recognition of shared project leadership. While this is a positive step at the federal level, it is also important that individual institutions move toward this kind of recognition when awarding tenure and considering promotions. According to the RBM Project description, �universities depend significantly on federal data sources for information about their own faculty�s participation in federally funded research,� making this an important step in the process.

While the details of the policy and its implementation have yet to be finalized, a working group composed of representatives from the federal grant making agencies will soon meet to work out the details.

Rhoten, D. and A. Parker (2004). "Education. Risks and rewards of an interdisciplinary research path." Science 306(5704): 2046