NIH reviews

"Research takes time" Decision by committee hinders agility Committees persist well past shelf life

I unfortunately and unknowingly landed in an organization under the Office of the Director that is not very reputable and the staff is treated as such. Now that I'm in I am scrambling to try and get out and get a better position in an Institute. Even the Center my organization supports is kind of dead-end. A lot of the scientists are only there because their labs lost funding and it is the easiest way into NIH. There is even high turnover among them as they look for greener pastures within the agency. For the admin staff the work is very boring, there is not nearly enough of it and has a narrow focus on something that no one outside of the Center cares about so it is hard to gain transferable skills. They want highly experienced professionals for entry level work. Again, this applies to my organization which is actually being disbanded and merged into the Institutes and Centers it supports. I still want to go to another Institute because there aren't that many opportunities for admin staff at this Center. The Grade levels are very low for both scientists and admin and of course there is the usual bureaucracy.