Indirect costs and the "skinny" federal budget

Among the proposed cuts to federal grant funders, the NIH's budget is anticipated to be reduced by 18%, some of which could come out of indirect costs to universities, hospitals and other research institutions. Indirect costs are sometimes mistakenly thought of as "extra money" for a grant-holding institution rather than the reimbursement of expenses associated with doing research. Direct costs usually do not include essential items such as salaries for safety, compliance and grant management personnel, building upkeep, and utilities. These are all real costs to the research institution and must be paid for out of the indirect costs.

These misperceptions about indirect costs prompted COGR, the Council on Governmental Relations, an association of research institutions, to publish a three-page Talking Points document discussing what indirect costs are, how they are calculated, and how cutting indirect costs could affect research institutions like Fordham University. You can download it here: COGR Talking Points. Please feel free to share it.

NIH operating under a continuing resolution through 12/11/14

The NIH announced on October 1st, the first day of their new fiscal year, that it is operating under a continuing resolution "at 99.9 percent of the FY 2014 enacted level." As a result, they will be issuing non-competing continuations below the level indicated on the most recent Notice of Award, "generally up to 90%". See the complete notice at NOT-OD-15-001.

Foundations -- Back at Full Funding Levels?

Philanthropy News Digest looks at whether foundations were actually hurting from the recession in the first place, and what the future holds for foundation funding.
Have Foundations Recovered from the Great Recession?

NIH posts official notice of fiscal practices for the rest of FY2013

The NIH announced on 5/8 that it is operating on a budget that's about $5M less than FY2012's and therefore continuing awards will continue to be made at lower levels than originally projected. This level is actually better than the 10% decrease seen on continuing awards while the NIH was under a Continuing Resolution (CR) (i.e., without a budget from Congress). Some awards made while they were under the CR may be partially restored with the new budget, which is the good news. The bad news is that all inflationary increases are discontinued and the salary cap remains at Executive Level II ($179,700).

Read the full text of the notice here: NOT-OD-13-064

UPDATE: We've just received a revised notice of award for one of our NIH grants issued while NIH was under the CR, restoring more than $20,000 to the budget. Take heart! And remember, even though funding may be down, you'll never get any money you don't ask for.

NIH releases some information about sequester cuts

Science Insider has an interesting article about the actual impact of the sequestration so far, including Twitter reactions: NIH Details Impact of 2013 Sequester Cuts

New funding search tool for Fordham - Grant Forward

Fordham has purchased a subscription to Grant Forward, the replacement for the well-respected grant database IRIS. The guides for use can be found on their knowledge base page. Please try out this new tool and let us know what you think of it.

Grad students petition Congress for more research $

Yesterday, MIT students presented Congress with a petition asking for more "indispensable investments in science and engineering research". The petition currently has more than 10,300 signatures; you can add yours here.

More information about the petition, and the Stand with Science project:

The #SciFund Challenge on RocketHub

RocketHub is a website that provides a place for creative people with ideas, but without money, to get their projects funded. Website visitors, dubbed "fuelers", can view available projects and donate to the ones that they'd like to see completed. This is called crowdfunding.

Now RocketHub is helping to get science done too, with their #SciFund Challenge project.