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Harvard prez says NIH funding system is broken
Harvard President Drew Faust has crunched the numbers on NIH funding of extramural research programs and concludes that the government-backed system to support biotech research efforts is broken. Out of the 47,455 grant requests made in the last fiscal year, only 10,100 were funded by NIH, says Faust. And that represented less than $4 billion of the NIH's $28 billion budget.
"The responses to rejected grants are downsized labs, lay-offs of post docs, slipping morale, and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions," Faust told lawmakers. "Today, China, India, Singapore and others have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals. Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere."
- read the report in Genetic Engineering
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Comments
By Anonymous | Posted 1:55pm | April 24, 2008
I understand Faust's comments, yet I question why Harvard doesn't use more of its $35 billion dollar endowment to fund research on its campus. I'm sure some of the endowment is used for building research facilities, paying professors, etc., but why not start a $250 million (just an arbitrary number) to pay for competitive grants on campus. Does the government have to pay for everything? The same goes for other universities. Harvard has more $ than anyone else, but places like Yale and Stanford could easily replace NIH funding for their professors. That would open up the NIH funds for professors from "poorer" universities.
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