Call for Identification of Medical Image Computing Grant Applications

Many of us work in a clinically relevant area of Medical Image Computing. And yet, we struggle to get NIH funding for methodological developments in this area of research. While we get encouragement from the program officers, the applications often gets poor scores from the study sections. To the best of our knowledge, there is no study section at NIH on Medical Image Computing (rather than Medical Imaging, for example, that is much more focused on improving image acquisition).

To create such study section, NIH needs evidence that enough grants on the topic are submitted to warrant an ad-hoc study section first, which can later be converted to a permanent study section if the stream of applications is sustained over several application cycles.

This is a call for everyone who is submitting a grant application to NIH. Please mention the term Medical Image Analysis in your grant summary/abstract and keywords. You don't need to do anything different, just add the keyword to the text. After 3-4 grant submission cycles, this will give NIH enough evidence (by searching the applications) to warrant a special ad-hoc study section on Medical Image Analysis. This will be a start. If as a community, we can sustain the volume of applications for a separate section, the ad-hoc study section will convert to a permanent one.

We are not calling for any drastic changes in the structure of the NIH review process. Our goal is to use the existing structure to create a completely valid avenue for Medical Image Computing grant applications to compete against others in this field on equal footing and for the NIH reviewers to select the best science and engineering in this field with the highest potential to improve medical care. This will improve the system relative to the current state where Medical Image Computing applications are sent to many other study sections and are evaluated by reviewers largely outside the field.

All you need to do to help with the process is to mention Medical Image Computing in the summary and the keywords of the next grant applications you are sending to NIH. And help us improve the visibility of the field by editing the wikipedia page on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_image_computing Medical Image Computing]. Medical Image Computing