When Jill Rafael-Fortney, an associate professor of molecular and cellular biochemistry at Ohio State University, submitted a grant proposal to the National Institutes of Health to research a new treatment that could prevent heart failure, she didn't expect her proposal to be denied - and then denied again. But after her first two submissions failed, Rafael-Fortney is now waiting to submit her proposal for the third time.
And she's not alone. "This is the cycle that most people are going through right now," Rafael-Fortney said.
At universities across the nation, young researchers are increasingly facing difficulties in obtaining grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation - a development that threatens not only the progress of science but the careers of a generation of young scientists, professors say. The more-or-less flat funding from the two government agencies has made it much harder for faculty at universities nationwide to receive funding for research.
Only one in 10 grant proposals receives funding from the NIH, according to a March 2008 report titled "A Broken Pipeline? Flat Funding of the NIH Puts a Generation of Science at Risk." The report, sponsored by Brown and six other academic research institutions, warns that the high degree of competition for such limited resources may not only drive young researchers to other careers and countries, but may also severely slow the pace of medical research in America.
The NIH faces its fourth year of flat funding in President Bush's Fiscal Year 2008 budget, and while the NSF is slated to receive more funding, the increase is "not as significant as we would like it to be," said Tim Leshan, director of government relations and community affairs at Brown.
The budgets for both the NIH and NSF have not kept up with inflation over the past few years. The NIH budget has flatlined since 2003, and "the spending power of a flat budget is less," Leshan said. And while on paper funding for the NSF is going up, "if you look at (the budget) over a couple of years, the funding has not really kept up with inflation," said Professor of Physics and Department Chair Chung-I Tan.
These revelations about NSF funding come just after the passage of the America Competes Act, which proposes doubling funding for basic research programs in the physical sciences. Though the act proposed funding increases for the NSF, the current budget only saw a 2.5 percent increase in the funds, Leshan said.
The result, according to a Feb. 25 article published by the American Institute of Physics, is that "many programs across the agency, including much of the core research, will have to scale back their planned activities in 2008." The institute predicted that the NSF will award about 1,000 fewer research grants.
Tan called the America Competes Act a "highly laudable notion," but he said that his department has not seen any immediate impact. Funding for basic research has not grown, he said.
NSF grants are one of the major sources of funding for researchers in the Department of Physics, Tan said. The limited NSF funding has been a gradual problem that has "been challenging for both senior and junior faculty," he said. So far, the faculty in the department has been very fortunate, he added, and both junior and senior faculty have been very successful in obtaining awards in the past. But when the time comes to renew the grants, "it will have a tremendous effect on science research activities," he said.
Vice President for Research Clyde Briant said the University is concerned that increased competition for grants is making it difficult for young researchers to receive funding and launch their careers. Universities play an essential role in the research and development that goes on in this country, Briant said, adding that they are "the primary sources of the innovation that occurs."
"It is very important to cast this as a national picture," he said. "The small growth in funding affects the nation."
Limited NIH funding is affecting researchers at other institutions as well. Investigators at Vanderbilt University, which contributed to the "Broken Pipeline" report, are concerned about the "long and deep 'recession'" of the NIH, said Andrea Baruchin, chief of staff of the Office of Research at the university's medical center.
"Like other universities, our researchers are struggling to get grants," she said.
Rafael-Fortney said she is feeling the effects of limited grant funding not only in her research, but also in her ability to support herself and her family. Like many other professors at universities, NIH funding pays for part of her salary.
"I have two children," she said. "I have to pay childcare out of my salary ... It's almost to the point of costing me money to work every day." She added that researchers are leaving universities because of the difficulty of obtaining research funding.
Even for the majority who have stayed, the process for receiving funding can be frustrating and drawn-out.
Rachelle Gaudet, an associate professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard, said she submitted similar proposals to the NIH five times before receiving a grant. The amount of time spent writing proposals, submitting them, waiting for them to be reviewed and then continually resubmitting them is huge, she said.
Moreover, the long process slows down current research, because without funding these projects cannot begin or continue, she said. She added that the competition also discourages creativity and innovation because researchers are becoming more conservative in their proposals.
The average age of a researcher who gets his or her first grant from the NIH has risen from 39 to 43 since 1990, said Tricia Serio, assistant professor of medical science at Brown. Five or six years ago, resubmitting a grant proposal four or five times would have been unheard of, said Serio, who applied three times before receiving a grant to study misfolded proteins and degenerative brain diseases. For junior faculty, she added, this situation makes it difficult to establish a research program, which is necessary for getting tenure.
Serio said her students are particularly aware of the funding problems. "I'm very worried about the impact it will have on young people wanting to get into this area," she said. She added that it is important for undergraduate students in the sciences not to be discouraged by the downturn in funding.
But Baruchin, from Vanderbilt's medical center, is not optimistic about changes in the NIH budget occurring in the near future.
"Given the current administration's conversations about the budget, (it) doesn't look like it's going to be anytime soon."
