NIH Research Funding Reality Fails To Keep Pace With Rhetoric

SCIENCE PRIORITY: Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) is sponsoring legislation to double all nondefense research funding in 10 years. Congress has been discussing proposals to double biomedical research funding over five years, double nondefense research funding over 10 years, and raise additional funds to benefit science. So should scientists start celebrating a renaissance in research funding? INFLATION EROSION: AAAS's Al Teich notes that science funding in many categories has declined over the pas

Paul Smaglik

Nov 9, 1997

SCIENCE PRIORITY: Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) is sponsoring legislation to double all nondefense research funding in 10 years.

Congress has been discussing proposals to double biomedical research funding over five years, double nondefense research funding over 10 years, and raise additional funds to benefit science. So should scientists start celebrating a renaissance in research funding?

INFLATION EROSION: AAAS's Al Teich notes that science funding in many categories has declined over the past five years after inflation.

Not quite, says Al Teich, director of science and policy programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). "You can't spend resolutions."

On October 22, Sens. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), known as a fiscal conservative and deficit hawk, and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) introduced a bill asking Congress to double all federal nondefense research funding over 10 years. Last summer, both the Senate and the House of Representatives voted in favor of resolutions...

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