liveable NIH grant salary for research?

[YouFoundMe]

Hi, Maybe some faculty could help me with something I've been wondering a lot about but too embarrassed to ask: can you earn a high salary based off of NIH grants? I would like to do a lot of research as a neurologist but am more and more becoming concerned that I'll be stuck on whatever is specified by the grant I am able to obtain. Are you able to obtain multiple grants to fund your salary, or to some how work it to make just as much as a clinical neurologist while doing mostly basic and translational research?

I really appreciate your help because I have no idea what it is like once you actually finish residency and am deciding on my residencies now based on things like research training vs more clinical, etc.

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[typhoonegator]

The NIH funds up to $179,700 USD of salary per year right now as a direct cost + fringe. That is what 100% of effort on publicly-funded projects looks like, meaning you have funding sources from the NIH that add up to 100% of your calendar year. You can make more than that with hard money or clinical RVUs or whatever, but when you write a grant the NIH "sees" only $179,700. So if you make $300,000 per year in your academic job, and are a co-investigator in a grant for 20% effort, it is 20% of $179,700, not $300,000.

 

[YouFoundMe]

Do you mean that you would make 300,000 + the 20% as your salary? Or would that 20% be going specifically to fund the research but not as a salary toward you?

 

[typhoonegator]

It depends on your department. If your department allows you to take what you make, then you could theoretically keep your $300,000 as well as the 20% of $179,000, as long as you are really spending 20% of your time doing the research (otherwise that is fraud) and that $300,000 was made in the other 80% of your time.

In many academic departments, however, you don't make that much with billing alone, and any money the government pays you is salary that your department doesn't have to cover. Your department loves that. I'm only 20% clinical and 80% research, so without grant money my clinical time wouldn't support a reasonable physician salary. So you add up your funding sources, combine that with your billing, and there is your salary.