The National Institutes of Health wanted to improve the research careers of promising young scientists by giving them a significant grant to allow them to devote time to their research careers. They...

The National Institutes of Health wanted to improve the research careers of promising young scientists by giving them a significant grant to allow them to devote time to their research careers. They requested and received applications from 100 scientists who were assistant professors and had been in their first job for less than 5 years. From this pool of 100 applicants, they selected the 25 most promising individuals in terms of number of publications, school from which they had received their terminal degree, and letters of recommendation. After 5 years had elapsed, they compared the performance of the 25 applicants who had received the award with the applicants who had not. It was found that the applicants who received the award were more productive in terms of number of publications, more of them had been promoted to associate professor, and their salary was higher than those who did not receive the award. Based on this evidence it was concluded that the program should be continued because it was a great success.