Cause and effect in scientific funding

The NIH on Thursday issued a notice titled, “NIH Operation Plan in the Event of a Sequestration.” For those of you following the sequestration talks here in the United States, the following should come as no surprise. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is facing an 8.2 percent across-the-board cut in future years (5.3 percent for 2013) which is set to have long-term repercussions for scientific advancement in this country. To put this in context, the average basic research grant in the U.S. is five years long, meaning that only 20 percent of these grants come to their end every year. Of that 20 percent, roughly half are renewed, leaving approximately 10% of annual funding levels available to support new investigator grants. Read more...