outcomes research for junior faculty within the first four years of their faculty appointments. The funding was for $150,000 per year for three years, and it was renewable for two additional years.

The objective of the review was to evaluate the impact of the program on clinical research, to assess the impact of funding on the professional careers of the applicants, and to identify issues that might provide guidance as to how the ACS might do these in the future. This was done by comparing funded applicants with the unfunded applications with regard to various things such as degrees, prior research experience, publications, institutions, current academic status, current research, and the number of publications.

A questionnaire was sent to those who had submitted applications prior to January 1, 2000. Many of them responded. Back in 1996, not too many of the investigators had e-mail addresses. So various search methods were used, looking at membership lists, professional organizations, university faculty listings, Medline, and sometimes telephoning. There were 204 individuals who had applied from 103 institutions. Interestingly, 20 institutions accounted for 45 percent of the applicants. Over a quarter of the applications (53) were funded. Eight renewals were submitted, and three were funded.

Table 1 demonstrates the number of applications that ACS receives each year and the funding rate through the years. The funding rate averages 25 percent and is fairly constant from year to year, although it may have increased in the past few years. Data from the last two years are not included.

Awards are funded through the recommendations of peer review committees. There is variability in funding rates by committee (see Table 2). For example, the Clinical Research in Cancer Control and Epidemi-