A laboratory studying sickle cell aid at the National Heart, Lung, and the cellular and molecular therapy laboratory of the National Institute, at the National Institutes of Health on February 8, 2024, in Bethesda, Maryland.
Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images / AFP
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Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images / AFP
The National Institutes of Health put a significant type of funding for medical research in universities, medical schools, research hospitals and other scientific institutions.
In the last stage of the Trump administration affecting scientific research, the NIH claims that the agency limits the financing of “indirect costs” to 15% of subsidies. It is below what many institutions have obtained to maintain buildings and equipment and pay the assistance staff and other general costs. For example, Harvard receives 68% and Yale obtains 67%, according to the NIH.
The NIH claims that the new policy, which marks a major change in the way the agency finances research, is more online on what private foundations pay.
“Most of the private foundations that finance research provide indirect costs considerably lower than those of the federal government, and universities easily accept subsidies from these foundations,” said NIH in a notification published on Friday announcing the change.
“Although aware of the subsidies of the beneficiaries, in particular” new or inexperienced organizations “their quality of life”, says the ad.
The NIH claims that change will apply to current and future subsidies, and even suggests that the new policy would apply retroactively.
The NIH spent more than $ 35 billion during the year 2023 for nearly 50,000 subsidies to more than 300,000 researchers in more than 2,500 universities, medical schools and other research establishments in the United States, according to the agency. This includes $ 9 billion for indirect costs.
The new policy, which comes into force on Monday, is condemned by many researchers.
“This is an infallible way to paralyze research and innovation that save from life,” said Matt Owens, president of the government relations council, an association of research universities and university medical centers. “The reimbursement of administrative facilities and expenses is an integral part of the total costs of the world’s class search.”
Owens says that his organization “examines this change of policy carefully because it contradicts current law and policy”.
“American competitors will savor this self-inflicted injury,” says Owens. “We urge NIH leaders to cancel this dangerous policy before its damage is felt by the Americans.”
These feelings have been taken up by other medical researchers.
“We are all in shock,” wrote Dr. George Daley, the dean of the Harvard Medical School, wrote NPR in an email. “It would decimate medical research.”
The announcement comes because many researchers are already anxious due to other measures that the new administration has taken, in particular by restricting communication and travel by NIH and other federal health agencies and freeze certain research subsidies.
