NIH announces a new funding policy that rattles medical researchers – Boise State Public Radio

Updated 08 February 2025 at 12:59 pm ET

National Health Institutes limit important types of funding for medical research at universities, medical schools, research hospitals and other scientific institutions.

In the last step of the Trump administration affecting research, NIH says the agency limits funding for “indirect costs” to 15 percent of grants. This is far below what many institutions receive to maintain buildings and equipment and pay for maintenance staff and other overhead costs. For example, Harvard receives 68 percent, and Yale receives 67 percent, according to NIH.

NIH says that the new policy, which notes a major change in the way the agency finances research, is more recently in accordance with what private foundations pay.

“Most private foundations that fund studies provide significantly more indirect costs of the federal government and universities easily accept grants from these foundations,” NIH said in a notice published on Friday, which announces the change.

“Although he realizes that the recipients of grants, in particular ‘new or inexperienced organizations,’, use grants to cover indirect costs such as overhead costs … NIH is obliged to be careful for grants to guarantee, that taxpayers dollars are used in ways that are beneficial to the American people and their quality of life, “the message said.

NIH says the change will apply to both current and future grants and even implies that the new policy will be implemented with a back date. But in response to the questions on Saturday, the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), which runs NIH, told NPR that while HHS is “having the power to make these changes retrospective for current grants and to require beneficiaries to return the excess The overheads they have previously received, the “officials” have currently chosen not to do so to ease the implementation of the new rate. “But” we will continue to appreciate this choice of policy and whether it is in the best interest of the American taxpayer. ”

NIH has spent more than $ 35 billion in 2023. Fiscal year for nearly 50,000 grants for more than 300,000 researchers in more than 2,500 universities, medical schools and other research institutions in the United States, the agency said. This includes $ 9 billion for indirect costs.

The new policy, which comes into force on Monday, has been convicted by many researchers.

“This is a sure way to cripple life -saving research and innovation,” said Mat Owens, Chairman of the Council on Government Relations, Association of Research Universities and Academic Medical Centers. “The reimbursement of facilities and administrative costs are part of the total cost of conducting world -class research.”

Owens says his organization “carefully reviews this change in politics as it contradicts the current legislation and politics.”

“America’s competitors will like this self -inflicted wound,” Owens says. “We urge NIH leaders to cancel this dangerous policy before the Americans feel.”

These moods were voiced by other medical researchers.

“We are all trying,” writes Dr. George Daily, the dean of the Harvard Medical School, NPR wrote in an email. “This would reduce medical research.”

The announcement is coming as many researchers are already worried due to other steps that the new administration has taken, including limiting communication and travel by NIH and other federal health agencies and freezing some research grants.

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