As you may be aware, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011 (Public Law 112-10) enacted on April 15 provides Fiscal Year 2011 funds for NIH and NIGMS at a level approximately 1% lower than those for Fiscal Year 2010.
NIH has released a notice outlining its fiscal policy for grant awards. This notice includes reductions in noncompeting awards to allow the funding of additional new and competing awards.
For noncompeting awards:
- Modular grants will be awarded at a level 1% lower than the current Fiscal Year 2011 committed level.
- Nonmodular grants will not receive any inflationary increase and will be reduced by an additional 1%.
- Awards that have already been issued (typically at 90% of the previously committed level) will be adjusted upward to be consistent with the above policies.
For competing awards:
- Based on the appropriation level, we expect to make approximately 866 new and competing research project grant awards at NIGMS, compared to 891 in Fiscal Year 2010.
- It is worth noting that we received more new and competing grant applications this fiscal year—3,875 versus 3,312 in Fiscal Year 2010.
The NIGMS Fiscal Year 2011 Financial Management Plan (link no longer available) has additional information, including about funding of new investigators and National Research Service Award stipends.
A LOT of us will miss Jeremy Berg and will be sorry to see him leave.
He gave the NIH bureaucracy a face
and some soul. And, best of all, he
always appeared to be on “our” side.
Joel Rosenbaum
Professor, MDCB, Yale
Sad to see what (crudely) looks like a success rate of 22% (865/3875), and the annual ‘whittling’ needed to help the new / competing pool is painful for we whittled, but it is sadder still that such a rate is probably better than the median for all extramural $$$ allocations.
I enthusiastically support the sentiment expressed by Joel Rosenbaum. Jeremy Berg showed a high degree of competence, understanding of the process, knew well the problems that are presently inherent in the system and was a sympathetic supporter of the scientific community. The NIGMS Program directors that he has hired and fostered are also excellent people. Dr. Berg will be sorely missed by the scientific community.