Productivity rate metrics for awards and investigators funded by the US National Cancer Institute

Abstract The proposed scholarly and societal metrics reflect the output efficiency of extramural research funded by the US National Cancer Institute. The productivity of awards or investigators (AoIs) expressed as output COst INdexes (COINs) were calculated based on AoI-linked qualified research articles (qRA) published in single years that follow the AoI-funded years. The outputs for qualified years manifested as either qRA counts or sums of qRA-specific impact values were normalized by the total multi-year amount of funding and, for fractional metrics, by the number of the qRA funders and co-authors. Calculations of the basic (overall) COINs (B-COINs) included all qRAs while translational COINs (T-COINs) were based on a subset of qRAs cited by clinical practice guidelines published by major professional cancer associations. Higher B-COIN values were associated with Early Stage Investigator (ESI) group as compared to non-ESIs. The Outstanding Investigator designation correlated with B-COIN decrease. In multi-component grants, higher B-COINs were observed for the Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) project co-leaders (PCLs) funded by SPOREs as compared to performance of the same investigators serving as Principal Investigators (PIs) of other research awards. In contrast, performance of the Program Project Grant (P01) subproject PIs was invariable regardless of the funding source and lower than that of SPORE PCLs supported by SPOREs. The highest T-COINs were associated with awards supporting late phase clinical trials, intermediate values noted for programs focused on early translation (SPOREs), followed by P01 and Research Project Grants (R01). Statistical evidence linked to performance-based metrics may facilitate more efficient investment policies at grant-funding institutions.