The director of the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday promised Congress a light touch on a key effort to help younger researchers, saying the agency did not expect much change from a planned new layer of scrutiny for senior scientists.
The NIH, in a bid to support less-experienced researchers at a time of federal budget cuts, has pledged that any scientist with at least $1.5-million in existing grant money will face an additional review before being awarded yet another grant.
That idea was sharply criticized by Sen. Richard C. Shelby of Alabama when NIH leaders came before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee to outline their budget request for the 2013 fiscal year. Such a plan “discourages success,” said Mr. Shelby, the subcommittee’s top Republican.
Mr. Shelby was promptly assured by Francis S. Collins, the NIH’s director, that the new layer of review would probably produce few instances of the NIH’s denying a grant that was otherwise found worthwhile on the basis of scientific merit.
Only about 6 percent of all NIH grant applicants exceed the $1.5-million threshold, Dr. Collins told the subcommittee. “It is just that if an investigator has already achieved that amount of funding, and comes in asking for more, that particular grant is going to get a little bit more scrutiny,” he said.
More than 3,000 researchers currently hold at least $1.5-million each in NIH grants, according to data compiled by Robert Roskoski Jr., a retired professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Louisiana State University. A total of 375 researchers have more than $5-million each in NIH grants, and 98 have more than $10-million, according to Dr. Roskoski’s tables.
Imperfect, Short-Term Solutions
The NIH, hoping to help younger researchers win a share of that money, held a conference last week at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in New York, to provide junior faculty with tips and contacts on its grant-review committees. The NIH also has taken other steps, including shortening its grant-application forms and setting aside spaces for younger researchers on the grant-review panels.
Over all, however, NIH officials acknowledge that such steps are imperfect, short-term solutions that they hope will allow younger researchers to maintain their careers until Congress decides to finance scientific research at a level commensurate with its importance in fueling the U.S. economy.
Congress has cut the budget of the NIH, the leading supplier of federal money for basic research at American universities, by about 20 percent relative to inflation since 2003. And yet, Dr. Collins said, spending on health research has consistently proved worthwhile, even if just in terms of the money. One study, he told the subcommittee on Wednesday, shows that every dollar spent on the NIH returns the country about $2.21 in economic benefit.
Conditions, however, may get worse. If a set of automatic budget cuts approved by Congress takes effect in January, the NIH will lose nearly 8 percent of its $31-billion budget, meaning it will award about 2,300 fewer grants than expected, Dr. Collins said. And Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to vote this week on a budget proposal that would cut federal spending as a proportion of gross domestic product to 16 percent in 2050, down from 24 percent in 2011.
Still, the NIH faces pressure from lawmakers to please local constituents. Mr. Shelby, in arguing against the new NIH review of researchers holding at least $1.5-million in agency grants, said that grant-award decisions should be based strictly on scientific merit. But he also prodded Dr. Collins to include Alabama in its Institutional Development Award program, which reserves money for researchers at universities in states where the success rate for NIH grant applications has historically been low.
And one of his Republican colleagues, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, which is one of the 23 states already in the program, said he appreciated the help it provides in delivering resources to “underserved communities.”
The subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat of Iowa, took the opportunity to remind Mr. Shelby of his interest in seeing the NIH support the best possible science. “We’re not in the business of just spreading money around,” Mr. Harkin said.
