New Policies At Three Federal Agencies Lend More Support To Outside Research

As Congress sends mixed signals on funding, USDA, NOAA, and EPA promise to go beyond their in-house staffs Efforts by three federal agencies to increase their use of extramural scientists could mean more funding for academic research, but only if Congress cooperates. The United States Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency plan to expand programs that give out money for extramural, peer-reviewed research. The action is in response to recommendations by outside panels. But the extent to which Congress will go along with the policy is not clear. At both EPA and NOAA, such extramural programs received 1991 budget increases that fell short of expectations. At USDA, a hefty increase in the agency's extramural competitive grants program comes with the requirement that overhead costs be held to a level that is one-third or less what institutions usually charge the government. Such restrictions will force scientists who want money from EPA and NOAA to compete for a smaller pot of funds. There will be fewer overall grants, and several programs will take longer to get off the ground. In addition, some scientists may be prevented from seeking USDA support by university administrators who refuse to make up the difference between what the research costs to support and what the university will be reimbursed. Despite these problems, many researchers see this increased reliance on extramural scientists as a ray of hope for neglected areas within their fields. "It's the only way that basic research using domestic animals is going to get done," says Andrew La Barbera, an endocrinologist at the University of Cincinnati. La Barbera examines pig tissue, and he finds that the National Institutes of Health is less supportive of that sort of model system than of research with mice or other common lab animals. "A lot of that [NIH-supported] work is not applicable to domestic species," he says. This broadened perspective could also open up new avenues of research. For example, two years ago, two scientists at the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory responded to the federal government's request for research proposals on the effects of ultraviolet light on plants. Now, Betsy and John Sutherland have a three-year, $250,000 grant from the Department of Agriculture, an agency that has never before supported their work. By funding the Sutherlands, USDA brings into its research effort a pair of scientists with expertise unlikely to be found among its own investigators. And the Sutherlands get the intellectual stimulation that comes with moving into a different area and building fresh ties. "New groups of people meeting and talking with each other is very useful," says Betsy Sutherland. Agency officials hope to involve more scientists like the Sutherlands. The recently approved federal farm bill, which authorizes spending for USDA over the next five years, endorsed a 10-fold increase in its support of competitive grants. The initiative has gained a rare nod from the Office of Management and Budget, which endorsed annual increases of $50 million beyond a 1991 level of $100 million. Although Congress provided only $73 million this year for peer-reviewed proposals, with a goal of $500 million a year by 1993, it still represents a sizable increase over the $42.5 million spent in 1990. "We think that the growth [in USDA research] will come in the National Research Initiative [NRI]," says Clare Harris, associate administrator in the USDA Cooperative State Research Service. The initiative facilitates increased interaction between the USDA and researchers outside the century-old land-grant university system. The agency's 1991 budget for NRI contains $14 million for a new program in natural resources and the environment, $35 million for plant systems research, $4 million for nutrition studies, and $20 million for animal research. There is a catch, however. Congress set a 14 percent cap on indirect costs, those funds paid to universities for overhead and other expenses incurred in administering the research. "There is the feeling [in the congressional appropriations committee] that the indirect cost rates were getting too high," says Harris about institutional charges that commonly exceed 50 percent. Last year the program was forced to implement a top rate of 25 percent. Some researchers fear that university administrators will discourage their scientists from applying to the USDA program out of concern that the research will place too heavy a burden on the schools. The University of Cincinnati is hesitant to set a precedent by accepting grants with this cap for fear other federal agencies will follow the USDA's lead, says La Barbera. "They told me they would make a decision on an individual basis as to whether to allow an investigator to accept an extramural grant that was less than the current rate," he says. "I suspect it could end up hurting me." Scientists also complain about the USDA policy of not paying any portion of the investigator's salary in the grant. Researchers who would like to turn to NOAA for support may also face problems getting funded . Gordon Swartzman, a fisheries biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, hopes to use the Bering Sea as a model system of global change to develop techniques for spatial data analysis and display. But such a project would need more money than NOAA received in 1991 for all types of external research. "I feel like I've been in an airplane in a holding pattern," says Swartzman. But Swartzman says he thinks that the government is slowly realizing the value of work like his. "Things are going to get better," he predicts. "I keep hoping to land soon." NOAA officials agree. The agency's budget for oceanic and atmospheric research has increased by $34 million, to $207 million, in 1991. Most of that increase will support in-house research efforts, but academic scientists can seek grant support through Sea Grant, the National Undersea Research Program, and the Climate and Global Change Program. "The world has caught up with NOAA's agenda [of environmental research]," says Ned Ostenso, assistant administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research at NOAA. The agency plans to carry out that agenda, he says, "with a substantial increase in our dependence on academia." But this year, that dependence will not be increased as much as NOAA--or scientists--had hoped. While NOAA's share of the $1 billion global change budget rose from $18 million to $47 million, the administration had requested $87 million (The Scientist, Dec. 10, 1990, page 8). EPA's 1991 extramural research budget will also disappoint some scientists and administrators. "It was dreadful," says Roger Cortesi, director of the exploratory grants program at EPA. "These grants are a major area by which we were trying to move the EPA into [becoming] a science agency, not just a regulatory and compliance agency." EPA supports university researchers in two ways. Its exploratory grants program finances investigator-initiated proposals based on ratings through peer review, and its cooperative agreements offer funds administered through EPA research laboratories. Congress cut $7 million from the president's request of $28 million for the grants program, and $4.3 million from a proposed $26 million for the EPA's global change research program, which also provides support for scientists through its laboratories. "At that lower level we cannot reliably support good people," says Cortesi. "It gets you very few new grants per year, and makes it difficult to get organized to have a consistent thrust." Congress also took away $26 million requested from the salary and expenses portion of the EPA budget that would have been spent on the agency's research laboratories. The final appropriations bill for 1991 gives EPA permission to fund the increases out of its research and development budget, but doesn't put any new money into that budget to cover those costs. Says Cortesi, "That is essentially another big whack at R&D that we're glum about."

New Policies At Three Federal Agencies Lend More Support To Outside Research

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