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+--- Thread: Frozen funding - NIH cannot review, handout grants (/showthread.php?tid=294506)
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Frozen funding - NIH cannot review, handout grants - sekker - 02-24-2025
Why should you care?
Nearly every single new drug approved in the last decade+ have a major component of NIH research.
The NIH funding ROI in the economy is nearly 3:1.
So the fact that the WH can now ignore judicial orders is ... problematic. Seems like a potential Constitutional crisis in the making, if it doesn't change.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00540-2
Re: Frozen funding - NIH cannot review, handout grants - cbelt3 - 02-24-2025
The entire Trump presidency is a constitutional crisis. Caused by the Supreme Court, who decided that the President IS above the law.
Re: Frozen funding - NIH cannot review, handout grants - Lemon Drop - 02-25-2025
The damage to scientific progress in health is unimaginable, and this is happening because our petty king hates Dr. Tony Fauci.
Top medical research schools like Penn have already rescinded graduate acceptances and culled faculty due to federal grant cuts.
IOW killing off the next generation of researchers.
The National Science Foundation is getting creamed too.
Re: Frozen funding - NIH cannot review, handout grants - Diana - 02-25-2025
My workplace runs on NIH grants. My salary is composed of fractions of various grants, as I work in a core facility and thus I work for EVERYONE—you walk in with a sample for us, we run it, regardless of who you are and which lab employs you. You may be charged differently depending on “inside” vs “outside” organizations, but I don’t have the right to say no unless what you want run just cannot be done using our instruments.
So yeah, this is concerning.
Re: Frozen funding - NIH cannot review, handout grants - bfd - 02-25-2025
Diana wrote:
My workplace runs on NIH grants. My salary is composed of fractions of various grants, as I work in a core facility and thus I work for EVERYONE—you walk in with a sample for us, we run it, regardless of who you are and which lab employs you. You may be charged differently depending on “inside” vs “outside” organizations, but I don’t have the right to say no unless what you want run just cannot be done using our instruments.
So yeah, this is concerning.
Freezing guaranteed funds is certainly not a sustainable situation - as in "they'll figure out how to deal with it". No, they'll close. The chaos this 'transition' creates is measured, and it's wrong at just about every level.
Once RatFinkKennedy Jr finishes redecorating his office, this can - and will - get worse.
Re: Frozen funding - NIH cannot review, handout grants - jonny - 02-25-2025
We are fukked.
Re: Frozen funding - NIH cannot review, handout grants - Ca Bob - 02-25-2025
I spent most of my adult life working under some sort of NIH funding, with a couple of instances where some private foundation funding was the substitute. But the big science that has been so productive over the past several decades comes from the NIH and NSF. I suppose everyone is hoping or expecting that the cuts will eventually be rescinded, but even moderate cuts will be disasters to some line of inquiry.
Re: Frozen funding - NIH cannot review, handout grants - sekker - 02-25-2025
Ca Bob wrote:
I spent most of my adult life working under some sort of NIH funding, with a couple of instances where some private foundation funding was the substitute. But the big science that has been so productive over the past several decades comes from the NIH and NSF. I suppose everyone is hoping or expecting that the cuts will eventually be rescinded, but even moderate cuts will be disasters to some line of inquiry.
Yes. The NIH is actually one of the few government agency that would actually pass even the most ridiculous DOGE audits.
That’s why I think they’ve decided to starve it rather than take it on directly.
Re: Frozen funding - NIH cannot review, handout grants - dk62 - 02-25-2025
Freezing grants is stupid. However, I do partially agree that the overhead has become problematic. I have been on both sides of funding, both as a grantee and a grantor. The indirect costs demanded by some institutions are ridiculous (60%-70%), while others are more reasonable 15%-20%. They can actually be negotiated down in some cases, but not if the grantor is federal government. But trying to fix this does not mean that the grant reviews, awards, and payments need to stop altogether. It is bringing an axe where a scalpel would do the job.
Re: Frozen funding - NIH cannot review, handout grants - pdq - 02-25-2025
dk62 wrote:
Freezing grants is stupid. However, I do partially agree that the overhead has become problematic. I have been on both sides of funding, both as a grantee and a grantor. The indirect costs demanded by some institutions are ridiculous (60%-70%), while others are more reasonable 15%-20%. They can actually be negotiated down in some cases, but not if the grantor is federal government. But trying to fix this does not mean that the grant reviews, awards, and payments need to stop altogether. It is bringing an axe where a scalpel would do the job.
I presume the amount of overhead is written into a grant application, isn’t it? And if the folks that evaluate the grants feel that it’s excessive, they can push back, as you said.
Also, getting grants, IIRC, is an incredibly competitive situation, with only a minority of grants being funded, isn’t it?
It seems to me if those things are true that it represents about as close to a meritocracy as humans can get. Yes, there are always some “politics” involved - not Right vs Left or GOP vs Dem, just personal politics. But it’s hardly like anyone who writes a grant gets free money from the government - woo!
This overhead thing seems a little bit like saying Elmo has to reduce the price of his cars by the amount spent on his factories where his cars are made - that’s “overhead”, right?