In the United States, a substantial portion of biomedical research is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH currently provides more than $30.5 billion to researchers at universities and medical schools. Today President Obama announced an additional allocation of $5 billion in stimulus money. According to President Obama:
We know that this kind of investment will also lead to new jobs: tens of thousands of jobs conducting research, manufacturing and supplying medical equipment, and building and modernizing laboratories and research facilities. I've long said, the goal of the Recovery Act was not to create make-work jobs, but jobs making a difference for our future. There is no better example than the jobs we will produce or preserve through the grants we are announcing this morning.
While the NIH certainly receives a fair amount of press and I hope that this additional funding will help stimulate the economy, I think it is also not important to lose sight of other funding mechanisms important to researchers. The National Science Foundation received $6.49 billion in funding for the 2009 fiscal year -- a fraction of funding allocated to the NIH. An additional $5 billion would essentially have doubled the NSF budget.
Recently, the President of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB, of which the American Physiological Society is a member) Dr. Mark O. Lively wrote to member scientists to ask them to petition Congress to provide a sustainable increase in NSF funding. Dr. Lively wrote:
Dear Advocate,
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is the only federal research agency dedicated to supporting all fields of fundamental science and engineering, and is the principal source of federal research support in fields such as mathematics, computer science and social science. The agency is also committed to achieving excellence in science, technology, engineering, and math education at all levels.
Your elected officials need to know how important NSF's mission and work are to our nation's economic prosperity, health, and global competitiveness. Please write to your Senators and Representative and ask them to champion substantial and sustainable annual increases in federal funding for NSF.
Sincerely,
Mark O. Lively, Ph.D.
President, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)
As people who are also interested in science, I thought that you might also be interested in this initiative. You can access FASEB's advocacy website here, complete with an editable letter that you can send to your Representative or Senator.
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Comments
Great post! It's so important to remember how many biomedical scientists' work is made possible by NSF grants. To learn more about NSF and how YOU can become an advocate for science, please visit FASEB's new website: NSFadvocacy.org/
Posted by: Kimberly McGuire | September 30, 2009 3:41 PM
I wonder how much the failure to boost NSF funding has to do with the porn/management kerfuffle. NSF has been robustly slammed by congress, and the right has always seemed far more suspicious of the NSF than the NIH.
Posted by: RobC | September 30, 2009 3:53 PM
I'm a little confused about this Obama announcement during his visit to NIH. Is this an *additional* $5 billion above and beyond the $10 billion that was already allocated to NIH to be spent in the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years, or is this just a ceremonial announcement to tout the first $5 billion that was spent in the 2009 fiscal year?
Posted by: Comrade PhysioProf | September 30, 2009 4:06 PM
The following quote from Obama's speech makes it pretty clear that he's talking about the awarding by NIH of the first $5 billion during 2009 of the total $10 billion allocated in the stimulus act:
Posted by: Comrade PhysioProf | September 30, 2009 4:12 PM
Letter sent. Boss just recently got a proposal to the NSF rejected.
Posted by: LtStorm | September 30, 2009 4:12 PM
PP, it is not clear that this is novel money, but it is part of the congressional stimulus package. That would lead me to conclude that this is an award of the money that was promised.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | September 30, 2009 4:16 PM
Based on Obama's statement that I already posted above, it seems pretty clear that this is *not* novel money.
Posted by: Comrade PhysioProf | September 30, 2009 4:37 PM
Sorry, PP. It appears as though our comments crossed the streams.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | September 30, 2009 5:10 PM
Don't cross the streams!!!!
Posted by: El Picador | October 1, 2009 12:13 AM
The NSF, along with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Energy's Office of Science, are supposed to be on a track to double their respective budgets over the next several years. This is based on the COMPETES legislation passed in 2007 as part of President Bush's American Competitiveness Initiative.
The challenge in making sure this happens has been pretty much in the appropriations committees, where other priorities, and the general inability to get budgets passed on time, has seen Congress hit the budget targets late. While this doesn't derail the doubling process, it makes it harder for the agencies and their grantees to effectively plan for and disburse funding.
Don't take this to mean I think Lively is wrong, it just seems like he's missing some context.
Posted by: David Bruggeman | October 1, 2009 9:24 AM
You'd think these motherfucking imbeciles would have learned from the clusterfuck that was the NIH doubling that this is TOO MOTHERFUCKING FAST!
Posted by: Comrade PhysioProf | October 1, 2009 10:14 AM