Funding Success of United States Federal Grant Applications Proposing to Study Therapeutic Applications of Psychedelics: A Survey Study
Psychoactives – February 05, 2025
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Only 16.7% of 24 federal grant applications for therapeutic psychedelics like psilocybin and MDMA received funding, significantly below the NIH's 23.4% average. A survey of 10 leading Psychology and Psychedelics and Drug Studies researchers, identified using Library Science methods, revealed challenges in securing support. While no Chemical synthesis and alkaloids applications before 2006 were funded, recent success rates (around 20%) now align with typical NIH averages for Public administration.
Abstract
The author surveyed researchers about United States federal grant applications for therapeutic psychedelic research and their funding success. An anonymous survey was sent to corresponding authors of the 50 most-cited psychedelic research articles published after 2000 and also disseminated on Twitter. Ten researchers responded, reporting on 24 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications for psilocybin, ibogaine, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), and other psychedelics, dating back to the early 1990s. Grant applications increased noticeably after 2006. Of the applications assessed, 16.7% were funded, below the NIH’s 23.4% average funding rate for R01-equivalent grants from 1998 to 2023. While no applications submitted before 2006–2010 were funded, the funding rate since then (19.05–22.2%) aligns with the NIH’s 20.6 ± 1.9% annual average for R01-equivalent grants from 2006 to 2023. Respondents generally perceived funding for psychedelic research as more difficult to obtain than for other areas, though recent improvements were noted. If the analyzed applications represent only a small subset of total submissions of applications proposing to study therapeutic applications of psychedelics, the findings may have limited generalizability and larger-scale validation studies would be required. However, this is difficult to determine since detailed data on unfunded NIH applications are not publicly available.