My limited experience tends to suggest there is a geographic mafia involved as well. If you are on the west coast and just need money, you are probably better o

My limited experience tends to suggest there is a geographic mafia involved as well. If you are on the west coast and just need money, you are probably better off pitching local industry because the east coast PIs have a older, more established network system that effectively locks up a lot of government grant funding. I have applied for grants that might as well have been written for my group, very niche, and been denied, multiple times. One of my advisors actually told me "Do you know how to deal with the mafia? You make your own mafia." I consider an NIH R01 to be equivalent to a degree from Harvard: it's the imprimatur, not the money (or, for Harvard, the education), that is different.