Only four years
after completion of a historic “doubling” of the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) budget, biomedical researchers in the US are experiencing
unprecedented competition for research funding and for many there is
deteriorating morale about the prospects for survival in research careers.
Three factors, in combination, account for this dramatic change: Flat
funding for NIH has left funded researchers and their institutions
vulnerable to the rising costs of biomedical research; reduced funding for
competing grants puts research projects in jeopardy; and the increased
capacity for research has resulted in a higher demand for funds. Boom and
bust cycles are wasteful and inefficient. Steady, long-term growth will
provide the optimal conditions for progress in science.
Throughout US history, scientific progress has promoted health and
prosperity in a rapidly changing world. Since the agricultural advances and
industrial breakthroughs of the 19th century, scientific and technological
progress has been the engine of American economic growth. The manufacturing
jobs of the 20th century and the high tech jobs of today were the direct
product of advances in science and technology. Now, more than ever before,
investment in science and technology are necessary for economic success.
In the biomedical sciences, NIH has been the principal vehicle for America’s
investment in basic research. For much of its history, NIH has received
steady budgetary increases; from 1971 through 1998, the average rate of
growth was nine percent (2). Concerned that scientific opportunities were
outpacing NIH funding, the US Congress took the historic step of doubling
the NIH budget from 1998 through 2003. The resulting long-term, large-scale
building of research capacity across the US led to a dramatic acceleration
of discovery and a remarkable period of advancement. Insights at the
molecular and cellular levels brought about new treatments for age-old
diseases such as cancer and heart disease and facilitated responses to
emerging crises such as HIV/AIDS and SARS (5). As the result of a range of
scientific advances, Americans are enjoying longer and healthier lives. Life
expectancy continues to rise: it is now 78 years for the total US
population, and every five years for the past 30 years it has increased by
one year. Moreover, the disability rate of older Americans has dropped by
almost 30 percent in the past 20 years (3). The US biotechnology industry,
with its massive potential for changing agriculture, health care, and
environmental remediation, was also a product of this build-up of resources
and the subsequent expansion of knowledge.
As the doubling reached completion, the future looked bright for biomedical
research in the US. Advocates for the doubling had assumed a return to
status quo ante (i.e., a more modest but steady growth) after the doubling
was achieved. The biomedical research community and its supporters were
surprised, however, when the long-term pattern of growth came to an abrupt
and unprecedented halt after 2003. The post-doubling NIH budget received
only meager increases in 2004, 2005, and 2007, and a funding cut in 2006.
Flat funding over the four-year timeframe eroded much of the build-up of the
doubling period (3), and there is now widespread concern in the US
biomedical research community about lost potential and real harm to ongoing
research projects (9, 1).
Why? How did conditions deteriorate so rapidly after such an historic period
of US investment? What is the explanation for the crisis that followed so
soon after the era of expansion?
Three factors, acting in combination, have had profound, negative
consequences for US biomedical research. First, the cost of research in the
medical sciences has continued to increase steadily while the budget has
stagnated, resulting in a loss of real purchasing power. In addition, the
impact of flat NIH budgets is concentrated, as shown below, in the competing
grants pool, resulting in large and significant losses to key parts of the
NIH portfolio. Finally, both of these setbacks have occurred just as the
capacity for performing more research has come online as a consequence of
substantial state and private university investment in infrastructure and
personnel.
| Figure 1. Competing NIH
Research Grant Awards |
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Erosion of Purchasing Power
The rising cost of biomedical research has eroded the purchasing power of
NIH grants. By its very nature, science requires state-of-the-art equipment
and facilities, and, thus, there is an internal dynamic forcing costs
upwards. These science-based inflationary pressures are in addition to the
other sources of rising costs. During the four years immediately following
the doubling of the NIH budget, the US Department of Commerce Biomedical
Research and Development Price Index (BRDPI), the accepted measure of rising
costs in US biomedical research, was 3.7, 3.9, 4.5 and 3.7 percent (5). By
2007, the compound effect of inflation on a grant funded in 2003 was a net
negative 16.8 percent.
NIH funded research projects lost an additional 2.9 percent in 2007 when NIH
announced that non-competing research awards would be paid at 97.1% of the
FY 2007 committed level (6). Since this policy was part of a broader effort
to ensure funding for new investigators, the US research community did not
protest the action. Nevertheless, the effects of this cut, added to the 16.8
percent loss to inflation, brought the total loss of purchasing power of a
grant funded in 2003 to a stunning net negative 19.7 percent.
Funding for Competing Grants
NIH makes multi-year funding commitments to allow scientists time to
properly plan, execute, and report the results of their work. Therefore, the
amount of money available for new spending in any particular year represents
only a fraction of the total budget. For example, in 2006 NIH budgeted $14.7
billion for research grants (8). Of this, only $3.4 billion was allocated
for “competing grants” to investigators seeking to start new projects or to
extend projects whose initial period of funding had expired. The majority of
the NIH grant budget goes to honoring the commitments to continuing grants
awarded in previous years, so that decreases in overall NIH funding have a
disproportionate impact on the NIH competing grant pool. It is important to
note that between 1989 and 1998, funds for competing grants comprised 13.9
percent of the total NIH budget. However, in 2006, only 11.8 percent of the
NIH budget was available for competing grants.
A close look at the recent history of funding for competing grant
applications illustrates what has happened to this important component of
the NIH budget and how it has disproportionately born the burden of the
adverse funding situation. While overall NIH budgets have been basically
flat since 2003, the amount of money available for competing grants has been
declining steadily. (Figure 1: Competing NIH Research Grant Awards). In
2003, NIH spent $2.4 billion on competing R01 grants, its principal
mechanism for supporting the investigator-initiated research projects that
have been the primary source of progress in the biomedical sciences. By
2006, after three years of steady declines, NIH spent $2.1 billion on
competing grants, a loss of 11.1 percent before factoring in the effects of
inflation. With the increased cost of research grants, this funding
shortfall translates into a sizeable decline in the number of awards for new
or renewed grants (Figure 1: Competing NIH Research Grant Awards). In 2003,
NIH awarded 7,255 R01 grants for new projects and competing renewals. In
2006, this number declined by 19 percent to 5,878 awards. To limit this
hemorrhaging of funds for new grants, NIH reduced the budgets of ongoing
projects by 2.9 percent, and to promote the survival of endangered
categories of researchers it has issued guidelines that establish priorities
for funding new investigators, investigators seeking their first grant
renewal, and investigators with insufficient other support (7). While this
is an important effort to protect the most vulnerable researchers and in
particular those who represent the future of US biomedical research, this
policy is insufficient to redress the problem of diminished resources.
| Figure 2. Number of NIH Resarch
Grant Applications |
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Increased Demand
Compounding the effects of inflationary erosion and decreased funding for
competing awards, there is now a greater demand for grant funds in the US.
The increased capacity for research created by the doubling of the NIH
budget is just coming on-line (4). Applications for NIH grants are at an all
time high, as new researchers seek funding and experienced researchers
extend the scope and scale of their research (Figure 2: Number of NIH
Research Grant Applications). The number of applications for NIH grants rose
very gradually during the first four years of the doubling, showing sizeable
increases only in 2003, the fifth and final year of the doubling period.
Only in the post-doubling years, 2004 through 2006, did the number of grant
applications rise dramatically. This is because it took several years for
the new researchers to be recruited into the expanding biomedical research
enterprise and for the new proposals to be developed. Applications for all
Research Project Grants rose from 34,710 in 2003 to 45,688 in 2006 (an
increase of 31.6 percent), while R01 grant applications rose from 24,406 to
28,931 (18.5 percent) over the same period.
Without question, the US demand for research funds will continue to grow in
the future as a direct result of the decision to expand the biomedical
research enterprise. Medical schools, universities, teaching hospitals and
other research organizations have embarked upon major, long-term programs of
expansion of biomedical research, building new laboratories and renovating
existing facilities. If funding opportunities continue to decline, many of
these institutions may find themselves with excess capacity and the
opportunity to realize fully the fruits of the doubling of the NIH budget
will be lost.
Conclusion
Technologically advanced societies rely on research, and their continued
prosperity and well-being depend upon scientific progress. Yesterday’s
science cannot guarantee success with tomorrow’s challenges; cycles of boom
and bust are inefficient mechanisms for promoting a robust research
enterprise. Stable, steady growth is needed to protect investment in
biomedical research from inflation, ensure funding for new grants, and to
protect the investment Congress and the American people have made by
increasing capacity for biomedical research.
References
1. Cousin, J., and Miller, G. Science 316: 356 (2007).
2. Korn, D., et al. The NIH budget in the “postdoubling” era. Science
296: 1401 (2002).
3. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Federal
Funding for Biomedical & Related Life Sciences Research, FY 2007. (FASEB,
Bethesda, 2006)
http://opa.faseb.org/pdf/final_funding_fy2007.pdf.
4. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Federal
Funding for Biomedical & Related Life Sciences Research, FY 2008. (FASEB,
Bethesda, 2007)
http://opa.faseb.org/pdf/final_funding_fy2008.pdf.
5. National Institutes of Health. Biomedical Research and Development Price
Index: FY 2006 Update and Projections for FY 2007-2012 February 5, 2007. (NIH,
Bethesda, 2007).
http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/PDF/BRDPI_letter_2_5_07.pdf.
6. National Institutes of Health. NIH Fiscal Policy Grants – FY 2007. Notice
Number: NOT-OD-07-030. December 15, 2006. (NIH, Bethesda, 2006).
http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-030.html
(2007).
7. National Institutes of Health. Implementation of NIH Fiscal Policy for
Non-Competing Grant Awards–FY 2007. Notice Number: NOT-OD-07-049. February
22, 2007 (NIH, Bethesda, 2007).
http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/
guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-049.html.
8. National Institutes of Health. Summary of the President’s FY 2008 Budget.
(NIH, Bethesda, 2007).
http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/PDF/Press info-2008.pdf.
9. Within Our Grasp—Or Slipping Away: Assuring a New Era of Scientific and
Medical Progress. (Harvard, Cambridge, 2007)
http://hms.harvard.edu/public/news/nih_funding.pdf.
10. Zerhouni, E. Testimony Before the House Subcommittee on Labor-HHS
Education Appropriations, US House of Representatives. April 6, 2006.
We thank R. Moore and C. Bleakly of NIH for their help compiling the
statistical data and D. Korn for his comments on an earlier version of this
manuscript.
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