The Academic Impact of Society of Interventional Radiology Foundation Grants: Report from the Society of Interventional Radiology Foundation/National Institutes of Health Task Force

Abstract

The Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) Foundation aims to promote scientific research in interventional radiology by providing funding to promising investigators. Over the last 26 years, the SIR Foundation has awarded more than 280 research grants. In 2020, the SIR Foundation created a SIR Foundation/National Institutes of Health task force to evaluate the scientific ramifications of these funds in terms of overall productivity and research impact. The objective of this study was to evaluate the publication output and overall research impact of SIR Foundation grantees from 1996 to 2022. During this time, the SIR Foundation awarded 282 total research grants, which amounted to $5,907,380 in total funding, leading to 140 publications. Of these 140 publications, 67 were published in journals outside of the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology (JVIR) and cited 1,753 times (26.2 citations/publication). The median impact factor of journals outside of JVIR was 4.98 (range, 0.33–18.8). The remaining 73 publications were published in JVIR, with a peak impact factor of 3.7, leading to 1,687 citations (23.1 citations/publication). There were 3,440 citations, and the conversion rate of grants (282) to publications (140) was 48%. The median relative citation ratio was 0.68 (range, 0–19.42). Analysis of variance testing per grant mechanism demonstrated a statistically significant correlation (P < .001) between a particular grant mechanism and the number of publications. Furthermore, linear regression demonstrated a significant increase in the mean impact factor of publications with respect to time, with more recent publications published in higher-impact factor journals, including those not focused on interventional radiology.