Sequestration = 41% cut in new and competing NIH funding

It’s hard to find any objective analysis that says that the US government can keep paying its bills without some combination of tax increases and cuts to entitlement programs. It’s also hard to find any objective analysis that would predict that politicians would get reelected for doing such things. With that in mind, congress inacted some legislation that included a provision that is being referred to as “sequestration”. Put simply, it’s mandatory, across-the-board spending cuts that kick in if a supercommittee fails to find a way to balance the budget– which they did. Recently, former NIGMS director Jeremy Berg was asked what this might mean for NIH funding.

The next year is particularly hard to predict. If sequestration (across the board cuts to all discretionary programs) goes into effect, the funding situation will be horrible. It is projected that sequestration would result in an 8.2% cut to the NIH budget. Given that approximately 80% of the NIH budget is already committed to ongoing grants and fixed costs, this would represent a 8.2% of the overall NIH budget taken out of 20% of the budget available for new and competing grants. This corresponds to a 41% cut in funds for new and competing grants. NIH would very likely cut committed grant budgets to some extent to reduce the damage, but the result would certainly unprecedentedly low success rates for grants. If sequestration [does] not take effect, this is still going to be a tough year.

Read the whole interview here: Part 1, Part 2
Sequestration is increasingly likely
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