On January 20^th, NIH issued a guidance notice related to the salary cap enacted as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 (P.L. 112-74).  Division F, Section 203, of the appropriations law reduced the salary cap on NIH, AHRQ, and SAMHSA extramural awards from Executive Level I ($199,700) to Executive Level II ($179,700). Read more at AAMC’s web page.

As described in this Science Insider article, NIH has begun to reach out to the community for feedback on what strategies should be considered during an era of reduced budgets. Everything seems to be on the table, from limiting numbers or grants per investigator to capping salaries charged to grants. NIH has put together a web based tool to help model these scenarios, allowing users to visualize cost savings were various strategies to be implemented.  Thanks to Carrie W. at AAU who pointed out this article!

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction entered by the district court and ruled in favor of the National Institutes of Health and the Administration’s policy on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). The ruling states the following: 

“We conclude the plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail because Dickey-Wicker is ambiguous and the NIH seems reasonably to have concluded that, although Dickey-Wicker bars funding for the destructive act of deriving an ESC [embryonic stem cell] from an embryo, it does not prohibit funding a research project in which an ESC will be used. We therefore vacate the preliminary injunction.”

As you might recall, last August, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth had ruled in favor of two scientist plaintiffs and issued a preliminary injunction that briefly blocked federally funded embryonic stem cell research on the grounds that NIH’s 2009 hESC guidelines violated Dickey-Wicker. Today’s decision vacating that injunction can be viewed here.   There is still the possibility of an appeal. 

Also in the news today, Dr. Roger Beachy, the current Director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) at USDA, will resign as Director effective May 20, 2011 to spend more time with his family. In the interim, Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young will be named as Acting Director of NIFA.

Today, President Obama released a $3.73 trillion budget request for FY12. The White House estimates that the request and projections for spending in the out-years would reduce the deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next decade. Despite reductions in overall spending, the request contains significant increases for research and development as well as some education programs.

National Institutes of Health- $31.8 billion, an increase of 3.3% over the FY10 level of $30.8 billion

White House/Office of Management and Budget HHS FY12 Budget Summary

National Science Foundation- $7.77 billion, an increase of 13% over the FY10 level of $6.87 billion –keeping the agency on track for a 10-year (FY08-FY17) doubling that is authorized in last year’s America COMPETES Act

NSF FY12 Budget Materials

Department of Energy, Office of Science- $5.4 billion, an increase of 10.2% over the FY10 level of $4.9 billion –keeping the agency on track for a 10-year (FY08-FY17) doubling that is authorized in last year’s America COMPETES Act. $550 million is also included for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to continue support for the promising early-stage research projects that could deliver game-changing clean energy technologies.

DoE FY12 Budget Materials

Department of Defense, Science and Technology- $12.2 billion for science and technology programs, which includes a 2% real growth in basic research

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency- $5.5 billion, an increase of 14.3% over the FY10 level of $4.85 billion

White House/Office of Management and Budget Department of Commerce FY12 Budget Summary

Department of Education-

• Continues support for a $5,550 maximum Pell Grant award, $819 above the level in 2008, largely paid for by eliminating the year-round Pell Grant and the in-school interest subsidy for graduate and professional student loans
• Invests $26.8 billion, an increase of 6.9 percent, in a reformed Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) focused on raising standards, encouraging innovation, and rewarding success, while allowing States and districts more flexibility to invest resources where they will have the greatest impact. The new ESEA directs funds to reform-oriented competitive initiatives, consolidates dozens of programs, and cuts programs that do not demand results.
• Provides $1.4 billion for new competitions, modeled on the Race to the Top initiative, to strengthen and reform early childhood education, improve district performance in elementary and secondary education, and improve outcomes in higher education

Department of Education FY12 Budget Materials

National Endowment for the Humanities- $146 million, a decrease of 13% from the FY10 level of $168 million

NEH FY12 Budget Summary

Additional information on President Obama’s FY12 budget request will be posted as it becomes available. The release of the President’s Budget Request (PBR) is the first step in appropriations process for the coming year. After Congress and the President settle on a path forward for FY11 — which began on October 1, 2010 — the FY12 process will begin to move forward.

In his State of the Union address last night, President Obama urged Congress to invest in critical priorities, reorganize the government, and begin addressing growing debt and deficits in order to ensure US success in the future. Obama proposed increased spending on education, infrastructure, and research and technology — particularly clean energy technology — that the President said would both create jobs and enhance US competitiveness in the world.

 “We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world,” he said. “We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit, and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future.”

The promise of technology heavily underpinned the President’s address, as he emphasized the importance of clean tech, broadband, and science education in achieving his goal. He made the case for continued investment in research funding, and a renewed commitment to immigration reform that’s designed to keep talented foreign workers in the country.

While this all sounds encouraging for the research and higher education communities, the President proposes to pay for those investments by cutting other domestic programs.  He is proposing a five-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending, which he said would save more than $400 billion over 10 years and bring discretionary spending to the lowest level as a share of the economy since the Eisenhower administration. It remains to be seen whether the President can actually motivate Congress into acting on his proposals, some of which appeared in Obama’s prior State of the Union addresses. It was in 2010 that the president sounded similar notes on innovation, taxes and trade, but those reforms often lagged in a Congress more focused on other big-ticket items like healthcare.

One surprise in the President’s address was his threat to veto any legislation that includes earmarks, essentially closing the door on any earmarks for FY12. Democrats in the Senate denounced the President’s call as a power grab that will have little-to-no impact on the federal budget deficit.

But the reality is that Democrats face a political climate that makes it virtually impossible to get any earmarks through this Congress if Obama and Republicans in congress maintain their opposition. Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has already said that no appropriations bills with earmarks will pass the House, and Senate Republicans have also embraced a moratorium on the pet projects. That means House Republicans, Senate Republicans, and the President would have to cave in if any earmarks are to become law this year.

In other budget news, the House Republicans on Tuesday moved forward in their push to sharply reduce spending and draw contrasts with President Obama’s budget priorities. They adopted a resolution calling for non-security discretionary spending to be cut to FY08 levels or less for the last seven months of FY11. House Republican leaders also announced that they are planning to bring a government funding measure to the floor the same week the president is expected to release his budget (week of February 14^th). During that same week, the House will also consider another stopgap spending measure to fund the government for the remainder of FY11. The current stopgap funding expires March 4th.

The Office of Federal Relations is closely monitoring all of these events and will provide additional information on this site as it becomes available. In the meantime, we are anticipating major programmatic cuts in the President’s FY12 Budget and are currently developing materials to defend those federal programs that the UW works with the most.

On Tuesday, Federal District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction which prohibits the federal government from funding any and all human embryonic stem cell research citing a pending lawsuit that contends that embryonic stem cell research violates the so called Dickey-Wicker provision. The Dickey-Wicker provision bars funding for “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero research”.

NIH Director Francis Collins provided details of the impact of the ruling, based on an interpretation by the Department of Justice. According to Dr. Collins, ongoing research (totaling around $131 million) that has already been funded will continue, undisrupted, until it reaches the point of renewal. Projects that are in review, even if they have been scored, or that are up for renewal, will be halted immediately, and applications will no longer be reviewed. NIH has also ceased reviewing applications for new embryonic stem cells lines. It remains unclear whether no-cost extensions of existing ESC projects would be allowed.

In addition to the problem presented by Dickey-Wicker, AAU is concerned about the findings related to the competitive status of the two adult stem cell researchers serving as plaintiffs in this case. The researchers were granted standing on the basis that they must compete for funds with ESC researchers. Judge Lamberth’s ruling goes a step further by declaring that these researchers suffer irreparable harm due to this competition. (He also determined that blocking federal funding would not do irreparable harm to ESC researchers.) This could have far-reaching – although not immediate – implications for all federally-funded peer-reviewed research, as it could effectively empower any researcher to sue a research agency over “unfair competition”.

Read the entire decision made by the Court

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) published in the Federal Register on Friday, May 21, 2010 a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) outlining new Responsibility of Applicants for Promoting Objectivity in Research for which Public Health Service Funding is Sought and Responsible Prospective Contractors – NIH’s Financial Conflict of Interest policy (75FR 28688).   The text of Federal Register notice  is also available on the NIH conflicts of interest website.  Comments are due July 21, 2010.  This long anticipated proposed rule is a result of NIH’s consideration of the comments it received on the Advanced NPRM in May 2009.  The description of the proposed revisions (Section II of the Supplemental Information in the Register notice) addresses the responses NIH received to the Advanced NPRM. 

There are substantive and significant changes being proposed by NIH.  Some of those changes have been anticipated by the research community; others have not.  Some of the changes will require changes in how many research organizations have designed and implemented the current NIH requirements; others will not.  It is important to remember that the proposed policy is NIH’s requirement and sets a minimum set of standards.  Organizations can implement policies the meet and exceed these requirements.  The reference to “minimum standards” is not to suggest that the current NIH policy is insufficient in achieving the goal of objectivity.  Rather, it is to remind organizations of how NIH views the reporting requirements – for purposes of reporting to NIH and – under the proposed rule – posting to public websites, organizations must report on financial conflicts of interest (FCOI) according to the organization’s standards, if they are different.   For example, the proposed rule lowers the threshold for a “significant financial interest” from $10,000 or equity interests of 5% to $5,000 total value in remuneration and/or equity in a publically traded company.  If the organization sets a $0 value, the organization must report and post interests from $0.   Read more

Yesterday, the National Institutes of Health director told Senate appropriators that the agency’s funding will face a “cliff” in FY11 when a two-year allocation of $10.4 billion in stimulus money for research runs out.  NIH Director Francis Collins also told committee members that during the past 30 years NIH grant applicants had a 25 percent to 30 percent chance of success at obtaining funding. That level has now slipped to 21 percent and is expected to fall even further to about 15 percent in FY11 as the flow of money provided through the economic stimulus law ends. 

President Obama requested $32 billion for NIH in his FY11 budget, an increase of 3.2 percent. The boost matches the inflationary index for biomedical research. While several members of the committee voiced strong support for the agency’s request they also said the challenging fiscal environment would make it difficult to secure a larger increase than is called for under the President’s proposal.

Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA), a long-time champion for NIH funding, pressed for more funding and called the proposed 3.2 percent boost “disgraceful.”  Specter suggested that scientists should become stronger advocates for NIH funding by highlighting how the stimulus funding has helped spark more interest in biomedical research.  Senator Harkin (D-IA), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, and Education, also expressed support for NIH funding but reminded committee members that finding additional funding will be difficult this year.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) have jointly announced two new research grant programs to bridge the sciences: New Biomedical Frontiers at the Interface of the Life and Physical Sciences (R01)  and Transforming Biomedicine at the Interface of the Life and Physical Sciences (R01) PAR-10-141. The former focuses on basic research and the latter on clinical and translational research.

The purpose of these two programs is to provide support for cutting-edge, visionary research, only possible through cross disciplinary research. Breakthroughs such as x-ray crystallography, CAT scans, and magnetic resonance imaging have had an enormous and important effect on biology. These discoveries were funded by sources, such as the Bell Labs, which are no longer in existence. Thus, it is very difficult for researchers to work on similar breakthrough technologies today.

Both programs will provide grants of varying sizes and lengths to accommodate a variety of research, encourage young investigators with novel ideas to apply, and will be reviewed by special review panels that include reviewers from the physical, mathematical, and computational sciences selected by NSF.  Applications will be accepted once a year in May through 2012.  The first deadline is May 18, 2010.

Yesterday, the governors of 25 states — including Washington’s Christine Gregoire — wrote to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Budget Committees to ask that the budget resolution in each chamber contain enough funding to allow the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to be funded at the Administration-requested level of $32.2 billion in FY11.  The amount represents an increase of 3.2 percent over the FY10 level.

Governors’ Letter on FY11 NIH Funding

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