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APS Science Policy Update
February 14, 2006
In this issue:
- FY 2007 spending outlook for federal science agencies
- NIH moves forward on multiple PI initiative
- Target date for electronic R01 grant submission is pushed back
FY 2007 Budget outlook On February 6, 2006, President Bush outlined his proposed budget for FY 2007. The National Science Foundation was the big winner among federal science agencies, with a 7.9% increase to $6.02 billion, and a ten-year plan to double the budget. With the administration clearly focused on boosting funding for the physical sciences, biomedical research did not fare nearly as well as in past years. The NIH is slated to receive no increase at all over last year's level, holding steady at $28.59 billion. Medical and prosthetic research at the VA suffered a $13 million cut to $399 million, and the Human Systems Research and Technology budget at NASA was cut by 56%, leaving $274.6 million. These are the figures that Congress will use as a starting point for the appropriations process, and a number of committees are already holding hearings on the individual agency budgets.
For more details, see the latest FASEB Washington Update: http://opa.faseb.org/pdf/washingtonupdate
/Washington_Update_FY07_BudgetSpecialEdition.pdf
Update on multiple PI research grants at NIH Following the receipt of comments on a proposed policy to allow multiple Principle Investigators on research project grants, the NIH has created a website to disseminate information on the status of the initiative. The APS Science Policy committee was among those who formulated and submitted comments ( http://www.the-aps.org/pa/resources/bionews/multiplePIs.htm), and several of the suggestions made by APS and other organizations are being incorporated into the new policies. The website (http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/multi_pi/) details the plans to create application forms to accommodate multiple PIs by the end of FY 2006, as well as other information about the new policy.
R01 electronic submissions According to the NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts, the target date for electronic submission of R01 grant applications has been moved back from October, 2006 to February, 2007. After receiving the first round of electronic grant submissions in December of last year, NIH has become aware of a number of technical problems that require attention before the program is expanded. In addition, the Washington Post recently highlighted the fact that the software used for electronic submission cannot currently accept applications from Mac users. The software designers hope to solve that problem within the next year.
For the Washington Post article, see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/12/AR2006021200942.html
For more information on NIH's electronic grant submission timeline: http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-06-035.html