The Trump administration’s blocking of new grant awards via the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has the potential to be a life and death decision. The fact is federal grants underlie U.S. leadership in disease research and STEM, and it’s essential that everyone understands the high standard of excellence and competitiveness by which federal research grants are awarded.
We are biomedical research scientists and professors at Queens College and Rutgers University. We have had the privilege and solemn responsibility of serving on many grant review panels for the NIH and National Science Foundation (NSF). We would like to pull back the curtain on the grant review process, focusing on NIH, which is the largest funder of science in the U.S.
The executive actions earlier this year halted the federal grant review process, which will in turn, cause massive delays and waste significant taxpayers’ dollars. First, about half of the study sections scheduled for February were cancelled, often the day before they were scheduled to meet. Thus, panelists had already completed the arduous task of reviewing proposals. Second, additional Study Section meetings could not be scheduled because NIH access to the Federal Register was blocked.
The Federal Register is the step through which grant review meetings are announced publicly, and this public announcement is required legally. Study sections are currently being rescheduled for April, but it remains to be seen whether NIH Institute Advisory Council meetings, at which funding decisions must be validated, will be held. To read the full story.