No Room For Minority Bricks And Mortar

Leading figures in biomedical research from academe, industry, and the federal government have told Congress that giving minority institutions a larger share of federal construction funds is vital to the long-term health of the nation. But their recent “Report on Extramural Biomedical Research Facilities Construction” makes clear that their support for enlarging the number of federal grantees holds only in the case of a rising tide that lifts all ships. “Although suppdrt for [broadening the pool] was quite strong,” says the report from the Department of Health and Human Services, which is based on a one-day meeting last spring at the National Academy of Sciences, “participants expressed doubts about how widely held this position would be in the event of a stable or reducing research budget.” The report to the House and Senate appropriations committees explains that ‘broadening the institutional pool is seen...

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