Scientists on Capitol Hill -- by Elizabeth Little, PhD

On Tuesday September 9^th, I joined 19 other young scientists to take over Washington, D.C. as part of Hill Day, sponsored by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB).  Twice a year, ASBMB hosts this jam-packed day of meetings to communicate the needs of the science community to members of the United States Congress.  Chiefly, we were putting out the call to increase NIH funding for Fiscal Year 2015 to $32 billion (and $7.2 billion for NSF).  These numbers may seem mind-boggling (one member of my advocacy group kept confusing billions and millions…pretty big difference) but the fact is that it doesn’t even represent an actual increase for NIH funding; instead, science advocates are just trying to keep up with inflation rates and maintain purchasing power, which has decreased 22% over the last 10 years. I can confidently state we’re all feeling the effects of the deflated NIH budget. 

During Hill Day, ASBMB splits up the young scientists to groups of 2 or 3, each led by a Public Affairs Advisory Committee member (an established researcher serving an advocacy role in the ASBMB).  My team was led by a department chair at University of Massachusetts and included an undergraduate at Ashford University in Iowa and a PhD candidate at University of Nebraska.  We spent the day running around Capitol Hill meeting with Congressional staffers from our group’s states (12 meetings in total for our little group!).  From the Illinois side, we got to meet with the offices of Senators Mark Kirk and Dick Durbin and Representatives Bobby Rush (IL District 1) and Robin Kelly (IL District 4).  All told, ASBMB Hill Day incorporated 102 meetings with delegations from 32 different states.  Our objectives were pretty simple: provide a “face” to science advocacy.  We went into each meeting, briefly described our research before speaking about the general benefits of biomedical science and how we help improve society.  Then we led into our “ask” to increase NIH and NSF funding along with other ASBMB-supported policy issues, such as immigration reform to retain foreign scientists, enhanced STEM education, and research and development tax credits.  ASBMB provided helpful information on each Congressman we were meeting (biography, policy interests and committees) and some broad advice (“avoid partisanship”, “don’t suggest a program that can be cut to increase NIH funding”) but I was surprised how easy the conversation flowed in the meetings.

Here’s the good news: ultimately, everyone wants to fund biomedical research.  After all, it’s difficult to argue against improved therapies and healthier citizens.  Furthermore, scientific research benefits the national economy, with an estimated $2 return on every dollar invested in the NIH budget.  It’s not too difficult a sell in prosperous times, but in the current economy, it’s important to remind Congress of the worthwhile investment in scientific research.  The real challenge is to communicate why science requires steady, predictable funding and why the government should contribute instead of relying on industrial research.   Only one Congressman questioned how we should fund our proposed NIH increase.  Overall, we met with very encouraging staffers, including those from offices of Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Senator Dick Durbin (IL’s own), both well-known science proponents.  I even had to opportunity to personally meet with Representative Jim McGovern (MA) while he lectured me on all the benefits of funding science research (easiest meeting I’ve ever had). 

 (L to R): Dr. Bob Matthews (UMass Med School), the author, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA)

Unfortunately, our efforts to increase the NIH/NSF budgets will not likely amount to much this year; on September 19^th, a Continuing Appropriations Resolution was signed to fund the federal government through December 11^th, 2014.  This Continuing Resolution prevents another government shutdown but generally maintains appropriations at the current rates.  Until the government is able to pass a true annual budget, it’s improbable that any continuing appropriations will allow for increased biomedical funding.   That said, it’s increasingly important that scientists take a more active role to promote these interests.  I recommend ASBMB’s Hill Day to any grad students or postdocs who are interested in policy and/or advocacy.  It was a really enjoyable and well-organized adventure (and quite an adrenaline rush).  Spring Hill Day is generally in March and you’re not required to be a member of ASBMB to participate.  In previous years, other professional/advocacy societies – including the Coalition of Life Sciences, Society for Neuroscience, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, PanCan, and American Association for Cancer Research – have hosted similar events.  Short of dedicating a few days to head to D.C., all scientists should help the cause by contacting their representatives in Congress or by getting involved with different professional societies to speak on behalf of biomedical research.  We all understand that the research we do is important, but science cannot live in a vacuum; therefore, it’s essential that we better communicate our value and concerns to both society and our government representatives.

Elizabeth Little is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Medicine.

NIH-proposed investigator awards may enhance innovation, but at what cost?

By Elizabeth Little, PhD, PDA Public Affairs Committee


Individual investigator awards are believed to promote creativity by offering long-term funding for established and successful scientists.  However, decreasing support for traditional grant proposals may concern early career researchers.

Following the leads of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), the NIH is encouraging each of its institutes to initiate funding “person” awards similar to those offered by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) rather than the traditional project-based grant. The most advanced proposal so far is the NCI’s Outstanding Investigator Award, a 7-year-long grant (with a possible 3-year renewal) offering $600,000 in direct costs each year. It’s estimated that Outstanding Investigator Awards will take up approximately 15% of the total NCI grant budget. The debate between investigator awards and project proposals lies in how the new proposals will particularly affect young investigators. 

The benefit of person awards is that they offer funding without stipulations, allowing for increased creativity in designing and implementing projects. With a relatively large amount of money per year and more long-term funding, scientists can pause from grant-writing and focus on research. Furthermore, studies comparing the NIH Pioneer awards (another investigator-based award) to traditional RO1 project grants has shown that Pioneer awards publish more papers overall (although papers/grant-dollar are comparable) and publish more innovative studies in more highly ranked journals.  

On one hand, the “fund people, not projects” theory seems like an excellent plan to finance the nation’s scientific studies. After all, these investigators have already demonstrated their ability to produce good work through peer-reviewed publications. However, while people awards are intended to reward productivity for established researchers, they will take money away from the pool available to more obscure or beginning investigators. As it is, the NIH research project grant review committees already consider the principal investigator’s publication record, and previously successful scientists are more likely to maintain well-funded labs. Even if younger investigators are evaluated by different criteria from their more-established colleagues, their productivity will be largely assessed based on publication records as graduate students or postdocs, which may or may not be indicative of their abilities as independent scientists. 

The individual investigator model will only allow for a select few to receive the awards. NCI estimates that fewer than 50 Outstanding Investigator Awards will be given a year. No doubt this is partly because the NIH does not want to entirely abolish its project-based proposals. While open-ended investigator awards have been highly successful for some groups such as HHMI, other institutions like the Wellcome Trust are planning to restructure their people awards to create more funding prospects for younger researchers. 

Overall, by freeing investigators from constant grant writing, longer-term funding would help boost creativity and scientific progress. Rewarding these grants to proven scientists with superb track records seems like an obvious choice. However, given the current funding situation, now is not the time to test out these theories. Right now, we need to be more concerned about young, promising researchers turning away from the field because of a lack of opportunity.  A 15% decrease in available funding would further hurt our scientific future and, by shutting out new researchers, lead to increased “graying” of investigators and a loss of smart and driven students who see a better future outside of the laboratory. We need to focus on encouraging new, developing labs because, inevitably, that is the long-term future of science; new investigators are vital for increasing scientific creativity and for maintaining the lifeblood of research for future generations. While the current NIH review process is by no means perfect, it seems easier to evaluate project proposals rather than investigator promise. Certainly, established and successful researchers are already favored in this process. It may be difficult to improve a system that already evaluates both the investigator and the proposed research, though research-based proposals tend to rely on less innovative projects. Rather than focus on long-term grants so that a few investigators can reduce grant writing time, we need to streamline the grant process and increase funding so that more scientists can support labs by actually winning grants and not just writing them. This year, the NIH allowed grant applicants with unsuccessful A1 grant resubmissions to apply the same ideas as a new A0 grant, hoping to  “encourage applicants to refine and strengthen all application submissions”. This is the sort of streamlined process that will allow scientists, particularly new investigators, to hone their grant skills and focus their projects for improved lab funding at this difficult financial time. 

http://www.sciencemag.org.proxy.uchicago.edu/content/345/6195/366.full