Virginia Tech deals with a potential fall from the NIH -reduction plan – cardinal news

The uncertainty blurns the community of the Virginia research community as the Trump Administration Directive National Institutes of Health Financing await the hearing of the Federal Court.

The question is not just about money, according to Virginia Tech President. It is about the life and ability of the nation to compete in the global technological environment.

Virginia Tech President Tim Sands, in an open announcement to the university community, said changes in funding can have $ 13 million or 4.2%impact on the university’s annual budget.

The Roanok Institute of Biomedical Research in VTC receives the majority of NIH funding at Virginia Tech. Fallout will not only affect Virginia Tech, but all universities conducting medical research, Sands wrote on Monday afternoon.

“Life will be lost due to the appropriate decrease in the pace of biomedical research,” Sands writes. “This will impair the nation’s ability to compete in a global technological environment, threaten our national security and affect the economies of countries and localities that host these institutions.”

Sands was not available for follow -up questions, and a university spokesman declined to comment on the situation.

A notice that NIH publishes on Friday will limit payments to 15% for “indirect costs”, especially facilities and administration, in the financing of research. The announcement lists such “overheads” as improvements to equipment and capital, the common administration and the staff.

So far, the decision and its consequences are sitting with a federal judge. Subjects, including the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Colleges on Monday in the US District Court, as well as General Bar Associates for 22 states.

US District Judge Angel Kelly later on the same day made a temporary NIH restraining order, effective throughout the country, preventing the body from applying a 15% cap.

Directly to indirect costs

According to federal lawsuits, direct costs – which would not be affected by this CAP – include salaries and consumables specific to research.

The aim of the CAP, the indirect costs-the abundant facilities and administrative expenses-include a research laboratory, processing of high-speed data, storage of data and security, laboratory equipment, radiation safety, disposal of hazardous waste and staff for administrative and regulatory observance of work.

Research institutes have negotiated the percentage percentage with the federal government for about 70 years, Science.org editor H. Holdon Thorpe wrote on Tuesday. In recent years, the percentage ranges from 50% to 70%, writes Thorp.

Negotiating Agreement between Virginia Tech and the Navy Navy Service, which is involved in the financing of research, shows that its facility and administrative expenses for university research are 60% and 63% recently in 2024 for each dollar provided, For 60 cents will be added more for overhead costs.

NIH has spent more than $ 35 billion in 2023 a fiscal year for about 50,000 grants for universities, medical schools and other research facilities. About $ 26 billion went for direct research costs, while $ 9 billion went over overhead costs through the indirect spending rate, the news said.

The Trump Directive is to save $ 4 billion, according to NIH’s post on X, before Twitter.

In Fralin Biomedical, where most grants are perennial awards, NIH’s portfolio is $ 163 million, representing about 68% of all FBRI external funding, according to the university.

The Research Institute, on South Jefferson Street, near the Carilion Clinic Memorial Hospital in Roanoke, specializes in neuroscience, cardiovascular science, cancer studies, recovery of addiction, children’s health and infectious disease science.

In his message on Monday, Sands wrote that in 2024, in 2024, the university’s general sponsored sponsored sponsorship was over $ 308 million. This included direct costs of $ 235 million and facilities and administration to recover $ 73 million.

The university uses other sources to finance another $ 18 million in unhappy indirect costs for federal -funded projects.

Indirect costs are “very real”, writes Sands, “and include compliance with the regulators required by the Federal Government (eg conservation of human subjects); the costs of construction, operation and maintenance of research facilities; and the administrative costs required to manage the grants and contracts. ”

If the reduction in NIH’s indirect costs has expanded to all federal agencies, it will cost the university more than $ 55 million a year, he writes.

“We closely follow the situation and reach our representatives of Congress in Washington, Colombia County to express our deep concern about this decision and its potential effect on our university and the long -term viability of our nation as the leader of science and technology,” he wrote.

“We will continue to advocate for the value and importance of our research mission and make the most powerful case of reviewing or reviewing this decision.”

The answers of Virginia’s legislators took place on political lines.

“Virginia-home of some of the best research institutes and universities in the nation-to lose a lot of this illegal and incredibly short-sighted maneuver,” said Senator Mark Warner, D-Virginia in a prepared statement. “Trump’s attempt to reduce funding will reduce the type of research that leads to medical treatments and scientific breakthroughs. It will devastate the main research ecosystem in Virginia, eliminate the work of the 21st century and harm countless American families who have been touched by cancer and other devastating diseases. It is now not the time to give way to the US leadership for China’s research and development activity, which is why I will struggle to oppose these abbreviations. ”

Governor spokesman Glen Youngkin, Christian Martinez, said in an email exchange that it is a “common sense” to ensure that taxpayers funded by taxpayers are applied to research, not administrative overhead costs.

US representative Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, said in a statement that he did not believe that a 15% indirect spending limit “will significantly affect the NIH-funded institutions in the ninth district.”

Griffith repeated NIH’s claim that the government should not pay more for overhead costs than private foundations. The NIH news includes a table that lists such percentages between 10% and 15% of non -profit organizations, including the Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation in New York and the Rockefeller Foundation.

“I am a great supporter of research,” he said in a statement that his speaker provided. “But it is difficult to claim that the federal government has to pay a much higher amount,” than what private foundations pay.

High Frall, the businessman of Roanok and a philanthropist, whose family name is at the Research Institute, said in a phone call last week that he would be surprised if the new presidential administration reduced the funding for medical research. He did not answer this week to a question about his NIH message reaction.

Hearing in federal cases is determined for February 21st. Among the questions Kelly will have to consider is a law that Congress passed the last time Donald Trump was president. In 2017, Trump wanted to reduce the percentage to 10%as part of a width decrease in NIH. The next year and since then, the Congress has banned NIH from applying changes to the program for the percentage of facilities and administration costs, the reasons say.

Despite future decisions, the University is involved in the possibility of deeply reducing funding, according to a message from Executive Vice President and Prophet Cyril Clark and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Amy Sebringing. This message, posted on the Virginia Tech website on Tuesday, encouraged researchers leaders to limit such overhead costs until they understand better how to “manage this challenging situation”.

They wrote: “The degree of 15% is significantly lower than the previously agreed rate and the university leadership is in the process of evaluating the potential impact of this change, which would be significant, especially if other federal agencies follow the example.”

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