 I agree with everything in this strong op-ed about the damage that will be done to health care (and the ability to save lives) by the cuts in NIH funding.
But, the op-ed also reminded me of a story. I remember being in a meeting as a vice chancellor for research with the provost and the dean of the medical school. I don't remember the conversation, just that the dean got frustrated. When that frustration piqued, he pounded his fist on the table and said (paraphrased because my memory is not perfect), "I don't have time for this shi*t. I am busy saving lives." I have heard this refrain a lot. There is even a lot of merchandise you can purchase that amplifies the refrain (Amazon has a lot to sell you). Now we need merchandise that says , "I could be busy saving lives if I weren't panicking over F&A" The author of the op-ed is right. The F&A decision alone may very well bankrupt academic medical centers and dramatically slow progress in health care. But, I always feel a need to be irreverent and forthcoming. We as scientists are quick to point out the successes - i.e., all of things that would have never happened if not for NSF or NIH funding. And why we need more research funding. We are not so quick to point out that the scientific process, by nature, is inefficient. And that the reality is that the average scientific paper gets cited less than 10 times. That just means that a lot of papers (in fields where citations matter) present results that are aren't having a lot of impact. We actually support that inefficiency by basing tenure on external grants and publication counts. One of the issues we face in higher education is a growing lack of trust of the public. So, I keep wishing that we can be more honest when discussing research. It's hard to argue how critical F&A is when institutions actually say they return a portion of F&A back to units and investigators as kind of a reward and investment in new activities, as opposed to reimbursing actual costs. It is kind of hard to get the public to understand that universities actually lose money on research and REALLY, REALLY need the F&A to support life changing work, when our major talking point is how much research money we bring in or spend when we compare universities. We are really tentative in letting the public understand that undergraduate tuition is playing a big role in paying for the financial losses related to research. This means that if the public still wants the benefits of research, while also backing reductions in spending and reimbursement for research costs, that the only solution for most universities is to raise tuition on undergraduates and teach larger classes with less expensive faculty. We often calculate (and overinflate) the economic impact (often not consulting economists) of research based on the salaries that research grants (mostly federal) support directly or indirectly, and the impact of that salary support on economic activity. We never ask the question whether the economic impact could be greater if the same amount of federal money went into other sectors in a local economy. And, we don't do a good job of tying increased funding to increased outcomes. I am most familiar with NSF. In 1995-1996. NSF's budget was $3billion, which would be $6.3billion today. NSF's current funding is $9billion, so about 33% higher in real dollars. There are a lot of reasons for this. But, if I didn't understand much about science funding and the costs of technology, and heard that, I would definitely ask whether we have seen a 33% increase in the impact of NSF's funded research. And, I don't know what the answer is. The way the current Administration is approaching science funding is totally irrational to me. It may or may not have been worse if we were more forthcoming with less spin. I don't know. But, if we think public trust is an issue driving some of the current irrational decisions, then maybe we should talk more softly and forthrightly.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |