Nate Yonamine, the Pitt News
PITTSBURGH, PA (PTTP) – Undergraduate students at the University of Pittsburgh are worried about their future prospects if the National Institutes of Health’s planned spending caps on indirect funding costs are implemented in the future.
Some students expressed worry that the caps will lead to a dearth of paid undergraduate research opportunities. Senior psychology student Dev Chopra said, “labs and research positions that are available [and] are able to pay students… they just won’t have many opportunities anymore.” Others are worried that a decrease in funding will lead to inaccurate or misleading information being spread in the classroom, like Senior neuroscience student Maitreyi Naikwadi: “if students are learning from research that isn’t adequately funded… students are only learning a half truth.”
The NIH announced two weeks ago that they will only allow a maximum of 15% of a grants’ total sum to be allocated to “overhead” or “indirect costs” of performing research. In its February 9th announcement, the NIH stated that private grant giving organizations such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Rockefeller Foundation have also implemented a maximum 15% cap on indirect spending, while other organizations like the Gates Foundation have set their indirect spending caps even lower. The NIH says that, on average, 27 – 28% of each grant it issues goes towards indirect funding costs, and that capping indirect funding at 15% of each grant it issues will massively cut down on the $9 billion that the NIH spends on indirect costs each year.
Universities have generally reacted negatively towards the planned caps. The Association of American Medical Colleges, the association that administers the Medical College Admission Test and an association that the University of Pittsburgh is a part of, sued the NIH in the District Court of Massachusetts on February 10th in an attempt to stop the enaction of the caps. Massachusetts District Judge Angel Kelley put a nationwide restraining order on the caps on February 11th, and a hearing on the restraining order is scheduled for the 21st.
At least two other suits have been filed since the caps were announced. The Association of American Universities, of which the University of Pittsburgh is a member, also filed a suit in the District Court of Massachusetts on February 10th in an attempt to stop similar caps from being implemented by the Department of Health and Human Services. Finally, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts filed its own suit in the District Court of Massachusetts to try and stop the NIH caps from being implemented; the suit was later joined by 20 other states, but Pennsylvania is not one of them.
The spending caps have been temporarily blocked, but it is unclear whether they will be enforced in the future. All three suits are still currently pending, and it is unknown whether a verdict either way will influence any future legislation on indirect cost spending. All that professors, graduate students, and undergraduates can do is wait and hope for the situation to be resolved quickly.