There is a lot of fear and worry in the scientific community as it is becoming more apparent that the financial crisis is impacting University endowments and state funding of public universities. Postdocs applying for faculty positions are especially nervous.
So how will science funding look in the next few years? There are rumours circulating that the NIH will receive a huge boost as part of the stimulus package. But these are just rumors. Here is some info from Zerhouni, the current NIH director who will be stepping down in the near future:
Nature:What solution do you see to the NIH financial crisis?
Zerhouni: The solution is that the economic situation has to turn around. I studied the NIH budget over time. And it's directly correlated with the federal surplus and gross domestic product growth.
But look at the situation today. The economic stimulus package is $500 billion, with $1 billion for science. It's outrageous. This is the future of our country. So now we're subsidizing the industries of the past at the expense of investments in the industries of the future. It's almost an insult, frankly.
I wonder how the "$1 billion for science" would be distributed.
To read the whole interview follow this link to the Nature article.
h/t: Juniorprof
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One thing we can all do is to write to the President Elect's Office and encourage them to reinvigorate science funding for the sake of our economy. Science funding creates jobs, helps industry grow and spurs innovation.
You can write the Obama team here:
http://change.gov/page/s/economy
Please stop whining about how much of the stolen money you will receive.