Senate Stimulus Would Up NIH Funding

The $838 billion economic stimulus package approved yesterday by the U.S. Senate includes $10 billion in funding for biomedical research—almost triple the amount allocated by the U.S. House of Representatives two weeks ago.

The research grants, to be awarded by the National Institutes of Health, will be welcomed by Harvard’s vast arrays of researchers and medical affiliates. For years, they have criticized the federal government for inadequately funding scientific research. According to Harvard statements on the issue, the NIH is currently able to fund less than two out of every ten grant applications, and thousands of approved projects lie dormant, awaiting funding.

Harvard chief lobbyist Kevin Casey said both the Senate and the House had done “an exemplary job” of writing legislation that creates jobs and transforms the economy by emphasizing innovation and education. He noted that the NIH funding would provide short-term boosts to the economy since the stimulus is designed for a two-year period.

“[There is] pent up scientific demand for increased funding, and there’s the capacity to deliver quickly on quality research,” Casey said, adding that the Human Genome Project had opened many avenues for scientific inquiry but lack of funding has subsequently stymied research efforts. “Since 2003, [NIH] funding has essentially been flat, so there are lots of great new ideas that have been awaiting funding.”

In 2007, Harvard received nearly $1.4 billion in funding from the NIH, and over half of the University’s external research funding came from the NIH.

The House of Representatives, which approved a similar stimulus bill two weeks ago but only allocated $3.5 billion for biomedical research, will now work with the Senate to forge a compromise bill for President Obama’s approval. The Senate bill was approved along party lines, with all 37 opposition votes coming from Republicans.

Economics and public policy professor Kenneth S. Rogoff said that compared to the trillions of dollars being spent on the overall economic stimulus—the Treasury also announced a new $2 trillion bank bailout yesterday—the funding for science was “small change.”

But he added that he believes federal spending for science is invaluable and that biotech has been “one of our big engines of growth for the last 25 years.”

“I don’t think the government is nearly over-supporting [science] at this point,” Rogoff said. “Science is one of [the nation’s] most competitive areas and certainly I’m in favor of increased funding.”

While the Senate stimulus package included additional funding for the NIH, the bill includes far less for the physical sciences—the House’s stimulus package would provide the National Science Foundation with an additional $3 billion, and the Senate version allocates only $1.2 billion.

—Staff Writer Peter F. Zhu can be reached at pzhu@fas.harvard.edu.