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Fresh focus: Details about the planned changes to the HHMI Investigator Program will be released in January 2025, an HHMI spokesperson told The Transmitter.
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Howard Hughes Medical Institute to limit eligible universities for Investigator Program in bid to spread the wealth

The next round of competition, slated for late 2025, will have a new focus, according to an HHMI spokesperson.

By Shaena Montanari
6 December 2024 | 2 min read

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) plans to change the eligibility criteria for its prestigious Investigator Program, The Transmitter has learned.

“!!Just learned that faculty from Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and others won’t be eligible in the upcoming HHMI Investigator competition (2026?). It will be dedicated to bringing in people from institutions not currently well-represented at HHMI – max 1 current Investigator,” Martin Jonikas, professor of molecular biology at Princeton University and a current HHMI investigator, wrote on Bluesky and X on Wednesday.

Map quest: The HHMI Investigator Program currently funds scientists at select public (blue) and private (orange) institutions in the United States.
Courtesy of Daniel Tyrrell

Jonikas told The Transmitter via email that he heard this news from neuroscientist Leslie Vosshall, HHMI’s vice president and chief scientific officer, on Wednesday at an HHMI town hall meeting. Harvard University neuroscientist and HHMI investigator Catherine Dulac, who was also at the meeting, confirmed the development with The Transmitter.

There will be a “new focus launching for the HHMI Investigator general competition slated for fall/winter 2025,” according to an HHMI spokesperson when asked for comment about the social media posts. The spokesperson declined to share additional information by the time of this article’s publication but said that they will formally share details about the plan in January 2025.

In an email to The Transmitter, University of California, San Diego neuroscientist Cory Miller, who is not an HHMI investigator, questioned whether the policy shift would change anything. “Only time will tell, but I’m doubtful because it will do nothing to address one of the most fundamental problems with HHMI; one that is well publicized. Namely that the vast majority of researchers to get HHMI were trained in a lab whose PI was HHMI.”

The HHMI Investigator Program provides each investigator with about $11 million over seven years, which is renewable based on scientific review. The competition opens every three years to scientists at select institutions in the United States. The most recent group of new investigators was announced in July.

Based on information from the HHMI’s website, The Transmitter tallied  39 institutions that currently have at least two HHMI investigators; 20 have only one investigator. Stanford University has 22—the largest contingent of current HHMI investigators, followed by the University of California, Berkeley with 21. Another seven institutions have double-digit HHMI investigators.

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