A US judge put put on hold cuts to the National Institute of Health by the Trump team
The Heritage Foundation Study of the U.S. Research Indirect-Costs Act: Science and Technology, Public Policy, and Public Discussions
To help pay for these utilities and resources, which are essential to scientific research, the federal government has been adding ‘indirect costs’ to research grants since 1947. These rates ranged from 8% to about 20% until 1965, when individual institutions began negotiating their own rates with HHS. The university would get $200,000 in overhead if the indirect-costs rate was 20%.
The Heritage Foundation report did not recommend a 15 percent cap for DEI. But the federal agency justifies its slashed rate in part by citing a “recent analysis” that found that 67 out of 72 universities were willing to accept research grants with no indirect cost coverage. While the notice does not provide a source for that analysis, it appears to have originated in the Heritage Foundation report.
A 1 percentage point increase in the federal indirect cost rate is associated with an additional 2.1 DEI employees and a $100 million increase in the total amount of indirect costs received by a university, according to the report.
The rates have risen steadily since the 1960s due to an increasing number of regulations governing laboratory research. Measures to protect animal welfare, ensure data privacy, and protect human participants in research are included in the regulations.
Direct costs paid for by research grants help scientists purchase equipment for specific projects and cover the salaries of lab personnel running them. Air conditioning, electricity, computing resources, hazardous- waste disposal, administrative personnel, and much more are needed to support research projects.
The US Department of Health and Human Services had comments on the lawsuits. It didn’t clarify if it would give more money to researchers to make up for the cap, or if it wouldn’t. Nature asked the agency about the lawsuits but Andrew Nixon said that the HHS doesn’t discuss litigation.
Researchers say that the policy would upend the biomedical-research enterprise. Alondra Nelson, who directed the US Office of Science and Technology Policy for eight months under former US president and Democrat Joe Biden, wrote on the social-media platform Bluesky that it would lead to a “generational restructuring” of the US research and development ecosystem.
Some research institutions had already taken precautionary measures in response to the cut on Monday. The University of Florida in Gainesville has an indirect-costs rate of 52.5% and told its staff members that new awards would be frozen because of not having the authority to charge.
A Supreme Court Judge Cancelled the National Institute of Health (NIH) Open Research Policy During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
Judge Angel Kelley’s orders temporarily prevent the NIH from enacting its policy nationwide; she set a hearing for 21 February to further consider the petitions.
The attorneys general of the states that sued are Democrats, although Trump, a Republican, won five of those states in last year’s presidential election. The effects of the policy would be “immediate and devastating”, their lawsuit said. This agency action will result in layoffs, the suspension of clinical trials, and disrupted laboratory programs.
Matthew Memoli, the acting director of theNIH, said in the memo that the cap is needed to ensure that as much funds as possible goes to direct scientific research costs.
A US judge has blocked a policy that would have, beginning today, slashed billions of dollars of funding annually for US research institutions, including universities and hospitals. In response to lawsuits filed by 22 US states and a coalition of universities, the action is in response to the policy being illegal and will cause cutting-edge work to cure and treat human disease to be halted.