E D I T O R I A L Why the U.S. Budget Sequester Is a Disaster for the Future of Biomedical Science Andrea C. Gore Gustavus and Louise Pfeiffer Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712 dered by the budget sequester, together with the unanticipated tripling or quadrupling of administrative work for PIs and university officials. Scientists are struggling to manage the operations of their laboratories in a void of solid information about upcoming grant budgets. By way of background, federal grants are funded by annual allocations that, under normal circumstances, arrive at a predictable time each year with an expected budget amount based on the original grant award. Due to sequestration, the receipt of annual funds has been delayed, often for months. This causes PIs and their administrators to create temporary budgets and to do their best to juggle monies to make the payroll while waiting for awards to arrive. Without knowing any specifics about the exact dollar amount of the cuts, PIs are constantly adjusting and readjusting budgets, typically involving a series of handoffs from the PI to an administrative assistant, next to a university accountant, and finally to an institutional official. As the NIH agencies struggle to backfill some of the cut revenues, many investigators, while grateful to receive additional monies, will go through the process yet again. Individuals, departments, and universities are reeling from the increased workload, with a massive loss of time that ought to be dedicated to the progress of scientific research instead going into bureaucratic money management. Entire research laboratories are spinning their wheels, waiting for awards to arrive or to be processed by overworked personnel. A 5%–10% across-the-board cut will be so much greater than the amount of money that is being “saved” by ill-conceived efforts to cut the U.S. debt. What a waste of time, money, effort, and brainpower. The budget sequester is not a 1-year event. It will remain in effect until Congress acts to change current laws, ISSN Print 0013-7227 ISSN Online 1945-7170 Printed in U.S.A. Copyright © 2013 by The Endocrine Society Received July 11, 2013. Accepted July 11, 2013. Abbreviation: PI, principal investigator. Co pi aa ut or CD or iza da p A R s the United States enters its fifth month of the acrossthe-board spending cuts of federal budget sequestration, most residents have probably forgotten about it. The topic is no longer headline news, and because life has gone on, many people believe that we have adjusted. Nothing could be farther from the truth for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). An NIH-supported research program is a multiyear process that begins with the submission, peer review, and approval of a proposal to perform a body of research over a period of time, usually 3 to 5 years. A principal investigator (PI), the leader of the research program, assembles and leads a team of scientists on experimental projects that may take years to run from start to finish. The grant itself pays the salaries of highly trained professional technicians; some have been working on the same or related projects for years and have developed unique and irreplaceable skill sets. Research grants also support the best and the brightest graduate students and fellows who represent the next generation of scientists. Finally, grant monies pay for supplies, equipment, and reagents, the hardware of science used in laboratory experimentation. So, where and how are research scientists to cut expenses? At academic institutions, a PI cannot always impose a salary cut or furlough personnel, because this violates the rules of the college or university. Often, a disproportionate cut is made to the experiments themselves, effectively curtailing progress on research. Multiply such budgetary adjustments by the number of NIHsupported grants in the United States, and it becomes possible to predict the loss of forward momentum of scientific discovery. Let me now turn to the unintended consequences of the uncertainty and unpredictability that have been engen- doi: 10.1210/en.2013-1650 Endocrinology, September 2013, 154(9):2987–2988 endo.endojournals.org 28/05/2014 The Endocrine Society. Downloaded from press.endocrine.org by [${individualUser.displayName}] on 26 May 2014. at 11:39 For personal use only. No other uses without permission. . All rights reserved. 2987 2988 Editorial Gore Endocrinology, September 2013, 154(9):2987–2988 raising serious doubts about whether the U.S. will remain competitive in a changing global research market. Some governmental officials have stated that the private sector will pick up the slack. This is wishful thinking and simply untrue. Each of us, not just scientists, has a responsibility to act by voting for leaders who support the NIH and by writing to, calling, or even better, visiting our elected officials. At the time of my writing this editorial, the director of the NIH, Dr Francis Collins, is preparing to make a case to Congress for restoring the ill-conceived cuts to the NIH. Researchers need to join the scientific societies that represent our concerns and actively participate in their advocacy events. There is a genuine danger that an entire generation of new investigators will be lost in this country as promising young scientists choose other careers or move to other countries with growing investment in research. The budget sequester is exacerbating an already untenable system in which funding lines at some NIH agencies are well below 10%. Those universities with large enough endowments may be able to weather this storm if their leadership has the vision to invest in preserving the forward momentum of the research enterprise. Considering the extent to which biomedical research and development drives the U.S. economy, this is a disaster of unprecedented proportion. Acknowledgments Co pi aa ut or iza da p or CD R Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Andrea C. Gore, Ph.D., Gustavus and Louise Pfeiffer Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712. E-mail: [email protected]. Disclosure Summary: No federal funds were used in writing this editorial. 28/05/2014 The Endocrine Society. Downloaded from press.endocrine.org by [${individualUser.displayName}] on 26 May 2014. at 11:39 For personal use only. No other uses without permission. . All rights reserved.