US universities say medical rescue research has been threatened by new cuts of federal funds up to $ 4 billion a year announced by the Trump administration.
National Institute of Health (NIH), which disburs near nearly $ 50bn a year, has released instructions saying it will cut from Monday “indirect” support to 15 percent from an actual average of 27 percent and in some cases over 60 percent . Funding includes administrative costs of research projects.
Nih said it was “vital to ensure that as many funds go to the direct costs of scientific research than upper administrative”.
But universities argue that they rely on this funding to build and maintain laboratories and cover costs. They say increased tuition fees or recruiting additional students would be insufficient to cover the gap.
American Medical Colleges Association warned that cuts will “Reduce the country’s research ability, slowing down scientific progress and depriving patients, families and communities across the country of new treatments, diagnostics and preventive interventions. “
Nick Dirks, president of the New York Academy of Sciences, said: “This will be devastating and researching the intestine. Without abundant indirect cost recovery, universities and hospitals will not be able to direct many of their programs most critical of search. “
US universities are already facing a temporary freezing of federal funds announced by President Donald Trump, as well as a ban on diversity and “environmental justice” work, investigates the anti -Semitism claimed on the campus and threats of a new funding tax.
Although an executive order to freeze all grants was removed after a legal challenge last month, universities are now not sure if the funds will continue.
Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.
Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, said: “COMEST CEO DELIVERED. People have been told to stop their research, some faculties have been told that they need to fire and close their laboratories they will to say that sensitive materials in time will not be more useful. “
Adam Bauer, a doctoral science student at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign, said he will only know in Payday next week if he will receive his next monthly permit of living now that his national foundation funds of sciences are questioned.
His research focuses on heat wave physics and how they affect crops, people and energy requirements. But he is afraid that the theme related to the climate, as well as his proposal to help keep female scientists in his field, endangers his grant. Climate and diversity, equality and inclusion programs are targeted by the Trump administration.
“After freezing I was withdrawing and our group conversation was going a little crazy,” he says.
“I can imagine a situation if they do a F check and they want to cancel the grant, they will come out in a way.”
Harold Varmus, former chief of the National Institute of the National Institute of Health and the National Cancer Institute, who is a professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, said that even several weeks of uncertainty would significantly delay meetings to plan research, review grant applications and delay clinical evidence.
“It doesn’t take long before things could be really messy,” he said. “It is worrying because the money is narrow and this can lead to real obstacles to science and the public that expects to have results.”
NIH is one of the largest federal research financiers, with the most part going to the high research universities led by Johns Hopkins and the University of California.
While some of the largest recipients have other sources of research income and considerable assets, others are more vulnerable in a time of slowing student applications.
Barbara Snyder, president of the American University Association, an alliance of the main research universities, said: “Another temporary halt to critical scientific research is a self-propelled mistake, forced. If you are competing in the neck and neck, Leaving the track for any amount of time is a gift for your competitors. “
Lynn Pasquarla, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, warned that the broader threat of “government intervention and unfair political influence” risked undermining “the integrity of American higher education and scientific research”.
“Freezing signals a growing high education policy,” she said.
“(IT) risks increasing scientific advances and impeding research on life saving.”
Bauer, the student in Illinois, has sought academic work focused on private universities that may have more than more tangible public resources.
“It’s been difficult,” he said. “The labor market is dry for climate projects as it is unclear to the extent to which the Trump administration is ready to go.”
