Scientists are
always worried about their funding. It’s the nature of the job; while most
scientists would love to spend all of their time on experiments, reality
dictates that they have to spend a significant amount of time writing grant and
fellowship proposals. Faculty compete with their peers for large grants, and at
the same time postdocs and grad students are competing for fellowship awards.
For many if not most scientific disciplines, the primary source of these funds
is the federal government. Thus, when news comes from Washington that the pool
of money could shrink precipitously - as it has in late 2012 - the stress and
worry become amplified.
How did we get
here? Congress has not been able to work out a budget the way that it used to
in the past. Part of the political difficulty comes from members of Congress
having different electoral incentives to vote for or against budgetary measures
(repeal of the Bush tax cuts, spending cuts, etc.). This led to the debt
ceiling crisis and subsequently the Budget Control Act of 2011, a rather
convoluted path that contains provisions for automatic, across-the-board
spending cuts called sequestration. These cuts were designed as a “Sword of
Damocles” to hang over Congress’s head during the 2012 session, giving members
of Congress impetus to act on a budget either through traditional legislative
negotiations or through the “super committee”. Despite their intent, both
avenues failed to produce budget legislation, and the sequestration cuts are slated
to go into effect Jan 2, 2013, in the event this month’s lame duck Congress
does not come to an agreement with President Obama (or if both parties decide
not to punt to a later date). Currently Obama and Speaker of the House Boehner
are conducting negotiations on budget measures that could be put to a vote
before sequestration takes effect. Much of the media coverage on sequestration
has focused on broad economic consequences of sequestration or on the fight
over taxes and entitlement programs, but I would like to focus on what is at
stake for the scientific enterprise.
Sequestration
calls for 8.2% cuts to be distributed amongst both defense and non-defense discretionary
spending, with only a few programs spared such as Medicare and Social Security.
Federal funding for science related-research across all agencies would face a
$3.9 billion cut in 2013 alone. Two of the primary federal funding agencies for
universities, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Nation Science
Foundation (NSF) would face cuts of $2.5 billion and $586 million,
respectively. The director of the NIH, Francis Collins, had said that his
agency would be unable to award about 2,300 grants in 2013 that it otherwise
would have granted. Areport by Research!America cites the economic toll for NIH cuts in human terms: 33,000 jobs and
$4.5 billion in economic activity lost. Cuts to the NSF would result in 19,300
researchers, students and technicians no longer being funded.
The anxiety in
the scientific community is palpable. The funding climate is already tense
after the one-time infusion of funds from the 2010 stimulus dried up. Here in
New Haven, the Yale Daily News recently took the temperature of Yale faculty who are facing the
effects of a potential fiscal cliff:
“I think we are all terrified,” said Chris Cotsapas, assistant professor of neurology and genetics at the Yale School of Medicine. “If I don’t bring money in, then I can’t pay the people in my lab, and I can’t pay my salary. It’s kind of that simple.”
83% of Yale’s
federal research funding comes through the NIH, and even though it is an elite
research institution, nobody will be immune from the effects of a significant
budget cuts. MITprojects a loss of $40 million in research revenue. Undoubtedly a
prolonged sequestration would have dire effects on graduate and undergraduate
education.
But beyond the
economic impact on universities, their researchers, and the local coffee shops
and retail stores that their salaries go into, there is also the loss of
innovation and new knowledge that comes from the research enterprise. Basic and
translational science funded by the NIH provides avenues for drug development
by the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. NSF-funded research enables new
technologies for clean energy. Researchers create new inventions that can be
patented by universities and brought into incubator startups or acquired by
larger companies. If sequestration takes effect and Congress does not restore
the funds, research-fueled innovation and invention will inevitably slow down
and sputter across many industries. New life-saving therapies that otherwise
would be developed in startups to and brought to clinical trials over the
coming decade could be lost. Throw in cuts to the Centers for Disease Control
(CDC, $490 million) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA, $319 million) and
the health and well-being of the nation becomes an even bigger concern.
The good news is
it doesn’t have to be this way. The scientific community is organizing to make
its voice heard on Capitol Hill. Groups such as Research!America, the Coalition
for Life Sciences (CLS) and the Federation of American Societies for
Experimental Biology (FASEB) provide opportunities for scientists to learn more
about the legislative process, email their members of congress, or even meet
them on Capitol Hill. Perhaps the research community is a few years behind the
business community and other constituencies in terms of developing these
relationships. It’s time to catch up. If you are a faculty, postdoc, grad
student or a technician who is funded by a federal research award, call your
congressman and let them know what sequestration means to your career and your
livelihood.
Resources:
- http://www.coalitionforlifesciences.org/be-an-advocate/advocacy-tools/sequestration
- http://capwiz.com/faseb/home/
- http://saveresearch.org
- http://researchamerica.org
Kenneth Buck
PhD, Dept. Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology
PhD, Dept. Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology
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