Update on Metascience-Related Language in the NIH Budget

Earlier this week, the House and Senate appropriations committees released a bipartisan bill on NIH funding, along with a Joint Explanatory Statement that has a few paragraphs of metascience interest. Note as well that the House and Senate both had already released language re: NIH that is still in place unless specifically overridden by the Joint Explanatory Statement.

Let’s dig in:

Indirect Costs

The Joint Explanatory Statement has some stern language dictating that neither NIH nor any other federal agency can change how indirect costs are calculated, or are they even allowed to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking that would attempt to do so. This is the most stringent language on indirect costs that I’ve ever seen:

Indirect Cost Rates.-The agreement recognizes that indirect cost recovery has been essential for supporting research at universities, nonprofit laboratories, medical centers and other entities eligible for Federal research awards and is key to sustaining U.S. leadership in scientific research and technological innovation. The agreement acknowledges that there is room for improvement in the system used to identify and recover indirect cost rates under the Uniform Grant Guidance, particularly with respect to the need for greater transparency into these costs. Various models have been suggested to achieve these improvements, including the Financial Accountability in Research (FAIR) model advanced by the Joint Associations Group on Indirect Costs (JAG), which the Committees believe merit further consideration. Therefore, the agreement directs the departments and agencies funded in the Act to engage in discussions with the Committees on proposals to achieve these improvements, including onthe FAIR model. Under this agreement, neither NIH, nor any other department or agency, may develop or implement any policy, guidance, or rule, including publication of a notice of proposed rulemaking, that would alter the manner in which negotiated indirect cost rates have been implemented and applied under NIH regulations, as those regulations were in effect during the third quarter of fiscal year 2017.

I assume that NSF, DOE, DOD, etc. are listening . . .

Fund the Person, Not the Project

The House report had this language, which remains in place:

Experimental Research.--The Committee recognizes the success of the NIGMS Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award program [R35 grants] and encourages the NIH to continue expanding similar experimental research opportunities to other institutes.

As well, the Senate report had this language about the same program:

Fund the Person, Not