Funding biomedical research: a common ground for concern?

Despite record levels of support, concerns over the ability of individual investigators to obtain funding for their research have been growing within the biomedical research community. The concerns have been focused almost exclusively upon the outcomes of funding decisions, and have ignored the pressures that produce them. Yet, it is those pressures that constitute our 'common ground for concern'. Resources committed in response to the pressures from special interest groups are unavailable for general competition based upon scientific merit. We in the biomedical research community must recognize that such self-interested efforts to dedicate resources undermine the integrity of the existing processes for making funding decisions. As a community, we should instead attempt to ensure that adequate resources are available to support the best quality research.