UNIVERSITIES WARN OF RISKS OF FLAT FUNDING OF BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH

A consortium of nine leading scientific and medical institutions, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, called on Congress March 19 to increase support for biomedical research and warned that the persistent flat funding of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) could thwart advances in treatments for such diseases as cancer and Alzheimer’s. UW-Madison is a signatory to a 21-page report on the status of U.S. medical research and its funding. The report was released March 19 at a Capitol Hill press conference.

Multiple years of stagnant budgets has hindered scientific progress, halted promising research, short-circuited the careers of young scientists, and undermines U.S. global leadership in biomedical science, according to the report, “Within Our Grasp – Or Slipping Away? Assuring a New Era of Scientific and Medical Progress.” The report says the doubling of NIH’s budget between 1998 and 2003 transformed science in important fields and fueled advances in basic research. But as a result of subsequent flat funding, the nation is now operating at an 8 percent loss in purchasing power.

For scientists, including those at UW-Madison, which receives the vast majority of its research support from NIH, the troubling funding trend means that eight of 10 research grant applications are unfunded. Certain NIH institutes, such as the National Cancer Institute, report they can fund only 11 percent of research project grant applications and reject many projects of exceptional quality.