The Impact of Research Grant Funding on Scientific Productivity

In this paper, we estimate the impact of receiving an NIH grant on subsequent publications and citations. Our sample consists of all applications (unsuccessful as well as successful) to the NIH from 1980 to 2000 for postdoctoral training grants (F32s) and standard research grants (R01s). Both OLS and regression discontinuity estimates show that receipt of either an NIH postdoctoral fellowship or research grant leads to about one additional publication over the next five years. The estimates represent about 20 and 7 percent increases in research productivity for F32 and R01 recipients respectively. The limited research impact of NIH grants may be explained in part by a model in which the market for research funding is competitive, so that the loss of an NIH grant simply causes researchers to shift to another source of funding.