A survey investigating United States federal grant submissions proposing to investigate therapeutic applications of psychedelics
medRxiv October 13, 2024 preprint DOI: 10.1101/2024.10.12.24315367 via OpenAlex
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractA survey of researchers who published the most-cited psychedelics articles since 2000 found that federal grant applications for therapeutic psychedelic research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had a 16.7% funding rate, lower than the NIH's 23.4% average for R-01 equivalent grants from 1998 to 2023. No applications submitted before 2006–2010 were funded, but the rate since then (estimated at 19.05% to 22.2%) is close to the NIH's average annual rate of 20.6% for those years. Respondents believed the funding landscape has improved recently.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Survey |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 10 |
| Population | Corresponding authors of the 50 most-cited articles on psychedelics published after 2000 |
| Keywords | Survey research Library science Political science Computer science Applied psychology |
| Key finding | The NIH funding rate for therapeutic psychedelic research grant applications (16.7%) was lower than the agency's overall average, but has risen since 2006 to near the average rate. |
Abstract
Abstract This study surveyed researchers to assess the contents and funding success of federal grant applications for research into therapeutic applications of psychedelics in the United States. The author emailed an anonymous survey to the corresponding authors of the 50 most-cited articles on psychedelics published after 2000 and disseminated it via Twitter. Ten researchers responded, reporting on 24 grant submissions for psilocybin, ibogaine, LSD, MDMA, and other psychedelics, all to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), from the early 1990s onward. The number of grant applications rose noticeably starting in 2006. Of all grant applications assessed,16.7% were funded, lower than the NIH’s 23.4% average funding rate for R-01 equivalent grants between 1998-2023. More specifically, while no relevant grant applications submitted prior to 2006-2010 were funded by NIH, the funding rate of applications since then, estimated at 19.05% to 22.2%, is close to the average annual NIH funding rate of 20.6 ± 1.9% for R-01 equivalent grant applications from 2006 to early 2023. Respondents generally believed applications for this line of research had a lower chance of success compared to other lines of research, although they felt the funding landscape has improved in recent years, in line with this study’s other findings.