Grants 360°: Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators program

Overview

• Highly competitive, laboratory science focused program.

• Eligibility requirements include being from 5 to 15 years from training, substantial active grant support as PI, and a tenure-track equivalent faculty position.

• Success rate estimated at around 2-3%.

• With the submission cycle being every 3 years, some initially unsuccessful applicants reapplied and were later selected.

• Competitive applicants are expected to be recognized leaders in their field, as appropriate for their career stage. This ranged from the perspective of amongst the best in the world to rising stars to minimally having a unique, novel approach to addressing your research question.

• Consider the “replaceable” test. If you and your labs research endeavors were removed, would this scientific work have continued anyway. If you’re research is replaceable by others in your field, most felt you would not be highly competitive for HHMI.

• In contrast to typical NIH grants focused on incremental progress, HHMI desires to fund revolutionary researchers. Their emphasis is on funding “people rather than projects”.

• The program involves investigators becoming employees of HHMI, while retaining their full academic appointment. HHMI provides full salary support along with significant research funding for a 7 year appointment.

• The renewal process occurring after 6 to 7 years is essentially the same process as for first-round applicants.

Application and Review Process

• Submit an initial application package comprised of a brief research statement, 5 most significant scientific contributions, along with other information describing your career and lab.

• Initial applications are reviewed, often by current HHMI investigators. Less than 10% of applicants will be selected as semi-finalists, informed after approximately 9 month review process.

• Applicants selected as a semi-finalist will have around 5 months lead time to prepare for the final evaluation process. Applicants will record a 15-min talk summarizing your work. Then, an interview will involve a brief 3 min presentation followed by 7-10 minute Q&A session with an expert review panel.

• In the initial application, discuss one main focus in your research statement (big picture) which should be cohesive and easy to understand. Important to highlight what you are going to do instead of what you have already accomplished (which should be reflected in your scientific contributions).

• Researchers should start by identifying their 5 most significant scientific contributions (often incorporating one published paper per contribution). The corresponding summary of this work should not simply repeat of the abstract, but place your research in a broader context emphasizing scientific impact and focusing on your role.

• While proposed methods will of course be broadly required, this is not expected to include specific aims and detailed methodologies.

• At all stages, reviewers are likely to be highly experienced investigators in their own field, but will be from very diverse scientific backgrounds. Your proposal and presentations should be developed with a broad scientific audience in mind. Avoid jargon to make it readily approachable for someone who is not an expert in your field.

• Uniformly, irrespective of career stage or international recognition, panelists emphasized that having colleagues review your proposal is vital to developing a competitive application. Doesn’t matter how senior you may be, we can all benefit from outside perspectives and editorial expertise.

• Some advocated hiring professional editors to review your proposal.

• All suggested to seek reviewers outside of your specific field to ensure the level of your writing is accessible to a broad audience and to provide diverse evaluative perspectives.

• If you make it to the semi-finalist stage, practice your presentation in front of others – timing in these brief presentations is very important.

• There are no institutional limitations on the numbers of applicants and no prior approval is required for submission.

• The office of JHU vice provost for research is offering internal, individualized support in the application preparation and peer review process; please refer to the link in resources listed below.

Career Impact

• Being an HHMI investigator was uniformly viewed as an excellent, career changing opportunity. The unique ability to have 7 years of funding with minimal milestones and tremendous flexibility is liberating.

• Despite being an HHMI employee, faculty maintain all the benefits of being a Hopkins faculty member, and it was even suggested that this could strengthen your relationship with JHU.

• No salary negotiating power with HHMI as this is determined by scales based on years in rank, geography, etc.

• There are some restrictions with taking on very senior administrative roles (i.e., dean of the school) while working with HHMI. However, other school leadership roles will likely be supported, and additional salary support from JHU is allowed if these roles typically involve remuneration.

• There are also some complexities in dealing with industry as an HHMI investigator. You are allowed to consult for industry, as well as to work with industry funding, but there are significant complexities when the investigator is starting their own startup company. IP (intellectual property) is typically shared between investigators, HHMI and JHU, so substantial bureaucratic process may be involved.

Resource Links

• https://www.hhmi.org/programs/biomedical-research/investigator-program#Application

• https://research.jhu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/HHMIInvestigatorProgram.pdf

Recording

Open