A federal judge in Massachusetts has granted two temporary restraining orders blocking the recent decision by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to cap the amount that research grant recipients can receive for facility and administrative costs, payments known as indirect costs.
On the evening of Feb. 7, the health agency announced that it would limit the indirect cost rate for both new and existing grants to 15% starting Feb. 10. That rate is substantially lower than the 27–28% rate that universities receive, on average, according to the NIH memo.
Three lawsuits were filed Feb. 10 in response to the policy change. That same day, Judge Angel Kelley granted a temporary restraining order in response to the first suit, filed by 22 state attorneys general, pausing the policy change in those states. On Feb. 11, Kelley halted the policy change nationwide in response to a second lawsuit, filed on behalf of medical centers and medical schools. Hearings on both orders are scheduled for Feb. 21...
There is a raft of expert commentary out there, including Derek's. I don't have much to add, other than that this is really bad, and I made a very incorrect call. I vastly underestimated the level of hatred the right has for the NIH, and the desire to make it suffer. I would like to think that Congress will push back on this, but let's be honest - they are supine. It also seems pretty clear that the second Trump Administration is intent on running the executive branch as though it has no checks and balances.
If you're affected by this, I'm very sorry. Best wishes to you, and to all of us.
This is ironic. I spent decades listening to PIs complain about overheads and universities taking “their” money. And I worked with a company that negotiated with a University for “attractive” overheads for grants we gave them. I can recall a very cheerful back-slapping performance where “suits” from both sides bragged about the “win-win” arrangement. I guess governments aren’t allowed to do that.
ReplyDeleteThis is like complaining about your taxes. Everyone loves to complain, but the fact of the matter is that while there are some bloated aspects of indirect costs, the things they pay for are fundamentally necessary to the institution (and most if not all will still need to come from somewhere).
DeleteParticularly for NIH grants, my understanding is that there is a capped dollar amount of direct costs, and then whatever indirect cost rate your university has negotiated is paid separately to cover those (i.e. it doesn't come out of your proposed budget per se). So while the school may get 127% of what your lab sees, if there were fewer indirect costs you'd still see the same in your lab. Disclaimer: this is just from my reading of the FuturePISlack, never been on NIH funding before.
I havent been at a university for a long time, but I guess I am shocked that the overhead cost really should be up to 60% of an NIH grant. Honestly, as a non academic person this seems like when my taxes disappear to a general fund and I think there should be a cap on it. I think it would be better to have a seperate category of grants, like "grant for materials center at university X" that would be geared to overall infrastructure and equipment across multiple projects and then make the grants for individual studies smaller and completely at the disposal of the PI.
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps we should consider building up national labs and national research centers and decouple teaching and research. It's not like most big time researchers are good teachers anyway.
DeleteAmen to that. I went to a small undergrad, and it was night and day compared to the experience an undergrad would have at my graduate program. Teaching was widely considered to be a low priority and a distraction from research. I think an undergrad would be better off going to a community college and taking chemistry from a professor who loves teaching.
DeleteHaving seen how students who've taken gen chem and orgo at community colleges do in our upper-level courses, I can tell you with absolute certainty that no, they would not be better off going to a community college. Sorry, but it's true.
DeleteI'll just add that divorcing the research enterprise from university also eliminates them as workforce development tools beyond the undergrad level. You can pump a ton of lab techs out of a PUI type school, but people capable of leading research projects and all the other skills PhDs have would have to be replaced. If you're training those people at the "Research focused National Labs" then you're just separating PhD programs from undergrad programs but also cutting off their ability to access undergrad labor (and provide research-relevant skills to them) to a significant degree.
DeleteThere is a reason that research is prioritized at universities.
In my understanding it's not 60% of the grant, it's 60% (for example, average is lower as stated above) on top of the grant amount. So the actual proportion is 60%/160%, i.e. 37.5%.
ReplyDelete