Rescuing Biomedical Research

Creative solutions to sustain biomedical research

On equity, power and responsibility in academic research

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In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, universities have issued statements reaffirming their commitments to improving diversity and inclusion on their campuses and expressing solidarity with the Black community. These statements serve as a reaffirmation of the institution’s values and its commitment to faculty, staff and students. But do these commitments reflect reality? […]

Reforming the biomedical workforce in the time of COVID-19

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Never before has the American biomedical research been paused the way it is during the COVID-19 pandemic. The decisions universities, federal agencies and researchers make during these times will reverberate throughout the research enterprise for years to come. The systemic flaws in biomedical research have been outlined numerous times prior to the pandemic. But the […]

Papers, preprints, events and other information on COVID-19

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This post will be updated periodically. If you have scientific research resources to add, please share them in the comments section below. The emergence of SARS-CoV2 and the spread of COVID-19 is a global emergency. In response, biomedical researchers across the world have mobilized to rapidly improve our understanding of the virus and the disease […]

Rescuing Biomedical Research statement on the move toward open access

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Rescuing Biomedical Research (RBR) supports the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) and associated research and academic libraries in their recent letter addressed to the President of the United States regarding the benefits of full, open access to published scientific articles. https://sparcopen.org/news/2019/sparc-letter-to-the-white-house-regarding-rumored-open-access-policy/ The SPARC letter requests the Trump administration to change federal policy to […]

A recap of the RBR staff scientist session at the ASCB|EMBO meeting

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At the recent American Society for Cell Biology meeting in Washington D.C., Rescuing Biomedical Research sponsored a session called “Barriers to expanding the ranks of staff scientists in biomedical research.” The session was meant to address some of the sticking points to hiring and retaining more lab and core-based staff scientists in academic institutions. On […]

The policy-driven decline in R01 renewal applications and awards

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Modern biomedical research labs require grants, typically from the National Institutes of Health, to function. An increase in the number of scientists seeking NIH R01 funding combined with low R01 success rates has meant that most grant applications go through multiple rounds of revision and resubmission before being funded. This time spent on writing and […]

Examining the distribution of K99/R00 awards by race

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The National Institutes of Health has several programs focused on improving diversity and inclusion at all levels of the biomedical research enterprise. Diversity in the professoriate is of significant concern, and a recent analysis suggests that the lack of faculty diversity is due to university hiring biases rather than a lack of qualified candidates. This […]

Improving support for young biomedical scientists: Some additional information

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Today, members of Rescuing Biomedical Research published an article in Science proposing the expansion of the National Institutes of Health’s New Innovator (DP2) award. The DP2 award is available only to early-stage investigators and places an emphasis on novel scientific ideas without requiring significant preliminary data. The DP2 program has received a positive evaluation, and […]

The need to consolidate staff scientist titles

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Expanding the ranks of staff scientists—Ph.D.-level, non-trainee, non-faculty researchers—has been a consistent recommendation in reports proposing reforms to the biomedical research enterprise. However, several roadblocks, including how the position should be compensated and how it should be structured—titles and career development opportunities, for example—have impeded full implementation of the recommendation. In a positive step toward […]

Transparency in Ph.D. career outcomes: The growing snowball

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Improving transparency in Ph.D. career outcomes has been a consistent recommendation for more than 20 years-worth of reports on reforming the biomedical research enterprise. While some institutions have launched robust career outcome data collection and publication projects, these efforts have long been isolated to individual universities. However, a series of recent community-wide efforts suggest broad […]