Last month, the Senate Appropriations Committee recommended that the 2012 budgets of the NIH and NSF should be cut by $190 and $162 million, respectfully. However, the House Appropriations Committee has recommended a $1 billion increase for NIH and no funding cuts for NSF. It is critical that you let your members of Congress know that the Senate’s proposals would be devastating to scientific progress. Use the following link below, freely provided by FASEB, to advocate for increased funding levels.
NIH Research Funding Trends, 1995 – 2012
Are you looking towards the future and wonder what the NIH has funded in the past? Now you can explore data that presents the trends in funding from the last 7 years. Click on the link below for more information.
The National Post-Doctoral Association
Did you know that there is a National Post-Doctoral Association (NPA)? There are currently many initiatives being promoted by the NPA, including a call for international officers, the announcement of new NPA board members and the announcement that Dr. Alan Leshner, CEO of AAAS, will be the keynote speaker of the 10th annual NPA meeting. All of the links below will take you to these important updates.
Call for Int. officers: http://www.nationalpostdoc.org/component/content/article/596-call-for-international-officers
New NPA board members: http://www.nationalpostdoc.org/component/content/article/584-2011-board-election
10th Annual NPA meeting: http://www.nationalpostdoc.org/component/content/article/585-2012-keynote
Impact your future
Some of the post-docs. that call University of Chicago their home are currently attending the Society of Neuroscience meeting, being hosted in Washington D.C. Aside from the outstanding research that the meeting offers, many student/post-doc.-oriented symposiums are geared towards informing those individuals how best to impact their future. One of the workshops, “Advocating in Congress for Federal Research Funding”, emphasized that the future of biomedical research funding is dependent on us, as post-docs. If we fail to advocate for the basic science- and disease-research areas that we all value so deeply, we not only negatively impact the future of science, but also significantly affect future careers in the biomedical field, including ours. Remember, it won’t matter how well connected you are nor how well your grant is written if funding for the NIH/NSF stagnates/decreases in future years. Please contact your society’s advocacy office to see how you can make a difference and if you don’t belong to a scientific society, JOIN ONE!
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