NIH Support for Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Research Grows, Diversifies: Part 1 of 2

Maureen Hannley, PhD, is currently Chief of the Research Division of the Department of Otolaryngology and Communication Sciences at Medical College of Wisconsin and Research Consultant for the Triological Society. She formerly served as the Chief Research Officer of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation and has held positions at the National Institutes of Health, Stanford University Medical School, and Arizona State University.

Part 2 of this article will discuss institutional support of research in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery and funding opportunities for researchers.

An important success story has been quietly taking place at the National Institutes of Health over the last decade, which bodes well for patient care, for science, and for the specialty. The number of funded projects with an otolaryngologist as the principal investigator has more than doubled between 1998 (74) and 2007 (152), as shown in Figure 1. The single largest increase has been in the number of research project grants (R mechanisms), followed by career development grants (K mechanisms); other types of funding have remained relatively stable.