title: Is there a relationship between National Institutes of Health funding and research impact on academic urology?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Scholarly productivity in the form of research contributions is important for appointment and promotion in academic urology. Some believe that this production may require significant funding. We evaluated the relationship between National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, academic rank and research productivity, as measured by the h-index, an objective indicator of research impact on a field.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 361 faculty members from the top 20 NIH funded academic urology departments were examined for research productivity, as measured by the h-index and calculated from the Scopus database (http://www.info.sciverse.com/scopus). Research productivity was compared to individual funding totals, the terminal degree and academic rank.
  
  
  RESULTS
  NIH funded faculty members had statistically higher research productivity than nonfunded colleagues. Research productivity increased with increasing NIH funding. Departmental NIH funding correlated poorly with the mean department h-index. Successive academic rank was associated with increasing research productivity. Full professors had higher NIH funding awards than their junior NIH funded colleagues.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is an association among the h-index, NIH funding and academic rank. The h-index is a reliable method of assessing the impact of scholarly contributions toward the discourse in academic urology. It may be used as an adjunct for evaluating the scholarly productivity of academic urologists.
authors: Department of Surgery, Division of Urology, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey 07103, USA.
authors: Marc
authors: M
authors: Colaco
authors: Peter F
authors: PF
authors: Svider
authors: Kevin M
authors: KM
authors: Mauro
authors: Jean Anderson
authors: JA
authors: Eloy
authors: Imani
authors: I
authors: Jackson-Rosario
mesh_terms: D000046:Academic Medical Centers / Q000191:economics; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000191:economics*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005180:Faculty, Medical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009316:National Institutes of Health (U.S.) / Q000191:economics*; D012109:Research Support as Topic; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014481:United States; D014572:Urology
keywords: National Institutes of Health (U.S.); economics; research; universities; urology