In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a

clinical trial Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human subject research, human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel v ...

. The phrase is also often used as a synonym for "head of the laboratory" or "research group leader". While the expression is common in the sciences, it is used widely for the person or persons who make final decisions and supervise funding and expenditures on a given research project. A co-investigator (Co-I) assists the principal investigator in the management and leadership of the research project. There may be a number of co-investigators supporting a PI. __TOC__

Federal funding

In the context of United States

federal funding Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...

from agencies such as the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

(NIH) or the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

(NSF), the PI is the person who takes direct responsibility for completion of a funded project, directing the research and reporting directly to the funding agency.NIAID (NIH) 'Glossary of Funding and Policy Terms and Acronyms'
/ref> For small projects (which might involve 1–5 people) the PI is typically the person who conceived the investigation, but for larger projects the PI may be selected by a team to obtain the best strategic advantage for the project. In the context of a clinical trial, a PI may be an academic working with grants from

NIH The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

or other funding agencies, or may be effectively a contractor for a

pharmaceutical company The pharmaceutical industry is a Medicine, medical industry that discovers, develops, produces, and markets pharmaceutical goods such as medications and medical devices. Medications are then administered to (or Self-medicate, self-administered b ...

working on testing the safety and efficacy of new medicines. There were 20,458 PIs on NIH R01 grants in US biomedical research in 2000. In 2013, this number was 21,511. At the same time, the success rate for an applicant to receive an R01 grant went down from 32% in 2000 to 17% in 2013.

References

Sources

* Casati, A. & Genet, C. (2014)
"Principal Investigators as Scientific Entrepreneurs"
''Journal of Technology Transfer'', 39 (1): 11–32 {{DEFAULTSORT:Principal Investigator Clinical research Science occupations