Why the U.S. Budget Sequester Is a Disaster for the

E
D
I
T
O
R
I
A
L
Why the U.S. Budget Sequester Is a Disaster for the
Future of Biomedical Science
Andrea C. Gore
Gustavus and Louise Pfeiffer Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, The University of Texas at
Austin, Austin, Texas 78712
dered by the budget sequester, together with the unanticipated tripling or quadrupling of administrative work for
PIs and university officials.
Scientists are struggling to manage the operations of
their laboratories in a void of solid information about
upcoming grant budgets. By way of background, federal
grants are funded by annual allocations that, under normal circumstances, arrive at a predictable time each year
with an expected budget amount based on the original
grant award. Due to sequestration, the receipt of annual
funds has been delayed, often for months. This causes PIs
and their administrators to create temporary budgets and
to do their best to juggle monies to make the payroll while
waiting for awards to arrive. Without knowing any specifics about the exact dollar amount of the cuts, PIs are
constantly adjusting and readjusting budgets, typically involving a series of handoffs from the PI to an administrative assistant, next to a university accountant, and finally
to an institutional official. As the NIH agencies struggle to
backfill some of the cut revenues, many investigators,
while grateful to receive additional monies, will go
through the process yet again. Individuals, departments,
and universities are reeling from the increased workload,
with a massive loss of time that ought to be dedicated to
the progress of scientific research instead going into bureaucratic money management.
Entire research laboratories are spinning their wheels,
waiting for awards to arrive or to be processed by overworked personnel. A 5%–10% across-the-board cut will
be so much greater than the amount of money that is being
“saved” by ill-conceived efforts to cut the U.S. debt. What
a waste of time, money, effort, and brainpower.
The budget sequester is not a 1-year event. It will remain in effect until Congress acts to change current laws,
ISSN Print 0013-7227 ISSN Online 1945-7170
Printed in U.S.A.
Copyright © 2013 by The Endocrine Society
Received July 11, 2013. Accepted July 11, 2013.
Abbreviation: PI, principal investigator.
Co
pi
aa
ut
or
CD
or
iza
da
p
A
R
s the United States enters its fifth month of the acrossthe-board spending cuts of federal budget sequestration, most residents have probably forgotten about it. The
topic is no longer headline news, and because life has gone
on, many people believe that we have adjusted. Nothing
could be farther from the truth for the National Institutes
of Health (NIH). An NIH-supported research program is
a multiyear process that begins with the submission, peer
review, and approval of a proposal to perform a body of
research over a period of time, usually 3 to 5 years. A
principal investigator (PI), the leader of the research program, assembles and leads a team of scientists on experimental projects that may take years to run from start to
finish. The grant itself pays the salaries of highly trained
professional technicians; some have been working on the
same or related projects for years and have developed
unique and irreplaceable skill sets. Research grants also
support the best and the brightest graduate students and
fellows who represent the next generation of scientists.
Finally, grant monies pay for supplies, equipment, and
reagents, the hardware of science used in laboratory
experimentation.
So, where and how are research scientists to cut expenses? At academic institutions, a PI cannot always impose a salary cut or furlough personnel, because this violates the rules of the college or university. Often, a
disproportionate cut is made to the experiments themselves, effectively curtailing progress on research. Multiply such budgetary adjustments by the number of NIHsupported grants in the United States, and it becomes
possible to predict the loss of forward momentum of scientific discovery.
Let me now turn to the unintended consequences of the
uncertainty and unpredictability that have been engen-
doi: 10.1210/en.2013-1650
Endocrinology, September 2013, 154(9):2987–2988
endo.endojournals.org
28/05/2014
The Endocrine Society. Downloaded from press.endocrine.org by [${individualUser.displayName}] on 26 May 2014. at 11:39 For personal use only. No other uses without permission. . All rights reserved.
2987
2988
Editorial
Gore
Endocrinology, September 2013, 154(9):2987–2988
raising serious doubts about whether the U.S. will remain
competitive in a changing global research market. Some
governmental officials have stated that the private sector
will pick up the slack. This is wishful thinking and simply
untrue. Each of us, not just scientists, has a responsibility
to act by voting for leaders who support the NIH and by
writing to, calling, or even better, visiting our elected officials. At the time of my writing this editorial, the director
of the NIH, Dr Francis Collins, is preparing to make a case
to Congress for restoring the ill-conceived cuts to the NIH.
Researchers need to join the scientific societies that represent our concerns and actively participate in their advocacy events.
There is a genuine danger that an entire generation of
new investigators will be lost in this country as promising
young scientists choose other careers or move to other
countries with growing investment in research. The budget sequester is exacerbating an already untenable system
in which funding lines at some NIH agencies are well below 10%. Those universities with large enough endowments may be able to weather this storm if their leadership
has the vision to invest in preserving the forward momentum of the research enterprise. Considering the extent to
which biomedical research and development drives the
U.S. economy, this is a disaster of unprecedented
proportion.
Acknowledgments
Co
pi
aa
ut
or
iza
da
p
or
CD
R
Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Andrea
C. Gore, Ph.D., Gustavus and Louise Pfeiffer Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, The University of Texas at Austin,
Austin, Texas 78712. E-mail: [email protected].
Disclosure Summary: No federal funds were used in writing
this editorial.
28/05/2014
The Endocrine Society. Downloaded from press.endocrine.org by [${individualUser.displayName}] on 26 May 2014. at 11:39 For personal use only. No other uses without permission. . All rights reserved.