Vincent

A View From Washington

by Jeff Vincent
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last month was a wake-up call for many faculty researchers at American universities.

News reports from Washington confirmed what many observers had suspected for some time: federal support for university-based research will be severely constrained next year and, most likely, for a number of years thereafter.
 
On Feb. 2, President Bush told Congress in his State of the Union address that he would draw a hard line on most domestic spending. “I will send you a budget that holds the growth of discretionary spending below inflation, makes tax relief permanent and stays on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009,” he pledged. (“Discretionary spending” does not include entitlement programs, such as Social Security or Medicare.)

Five days later, the president made good on his promise, submitting a proposed budget for fiscal year 2006 that would hold all discretionary spending to 2.1 percent, less than the expected rate of inflation. Moreover, discretionary spending not related to defense or homeland security would be cut some $2 billion, or 0.7 percent, from the current year’s levels.

This segment of “discretionary spending” represents only 16 percent of the federal budget, but includes everything from energy programs to veterans’ care, from transportation initiatives to AIDS treatment, from federal housing programs to environmental safeguards. Most of the federal agencies that sponsor university-based research would be hit hard.

How did we get here? There are no simple answers, but it is clear that non-defense, discretionary spending is being squeezed by continual growth in the cost of entitlement programs; the high, ongoing expense of the war on terrorism and military operations in Iraq; and the increased burden of payments on the national debt. These wedges are taking ever-larger portions of a federal budgetary pie and doing so at a time when income taxes have been reduced.

As a result, the federal budget deficit has reached record levels. Many in the president’s own party have become increasingly vocal in recent months in their opposition to ongoing, high deficits. It appears the White House has started to respond by constricting growth in the one segment of the budget that can be most easily controlled: the domestic discretionary portion that includes, among other things, most university-based research.

Whatever the reasons, the impact could be significant.

In its review of the budget proposal, the authoritative Budget and Policy Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science offered a bleak summary of the outlook for federal research and development (R&D).
“The National Science Foundation would receive an average 1 percent boost for research programs. The National Institutes of Health R&D investment would fail to keep pace with inflation for the first time in 24 years, with nearly all the institutes receiving increases of 0.5 percent or less,” the analysis said.

“The Department of Energy’s Office of Science would see its budget fall 4 percent, and environmental R&D programs would decline across the board. Multi-agency initiatives in nanotechnology, IT and climate change science would all decline in funding,” according to the association.

The AAAS policy group also noted that, while NASA would receive a 4.9 percent increase in overall R&D funding, the agency faces “steep cuts in environmental, biological and physical sciences research in order to shift resources toward solar system exploration and R&D on moon and Mars mission technologies.”

Even defense research would not be immune. While Department of Defense R&D would increase slightly, most of the increase would be on advanced development of weapons. The Pentagon’s science and technology research accounts would be cut by 21 percent.

The National Endowment for the Humanities, an important source of research support for several Vanderbilt faculty members, would receive a flat budget under the administration’s proposal, thereby falling behind inflation.

In other words, the squeeze may be felt by anyone who relies significantly on federal grants in a host of disciplines.

These include the physical, biological and health sciences; engineering; education; the humanities; and the growing number of research areas at the intersection of these disciplines.

As a leading research university, Vanderbilt is a major recipient of federal research dollars, competing very successfully with other institutions across the country for peer-reviewed grants. In fiscal year 2004, Vanderbilt received federal grants and contracts valued at $330 million. This represents almost 86 percent of all externally funded research at the university in that year.

Obviously, these funds provide the lifeblood for a substantial portion of our campus “economy” – for the cutting-edge research by our faculty; for the support of many graduate assistants; for research facilities and for the numerous administrative activities that support those enterprises.

How and when will the impact be felt?

First, it’s important to remember that the president’s budget is only a starting point – a “blueprint.” Congress surely will make many changes to it over the next several months (although the lawmakers will be dealing with the same economic pressures confronting the White House decision-makers). During this period, research universities will be among the many interest groups trying to persuade key members of congress that additional federal funds are needed in their areas.

Second, any impact will vary greatly among the federal agencies, each of which handles its grants programs in a different fashion. There are various options (and combinations thereof): reducing the number of grants, cutting the average dollar amount of awards, limiting the length of grants and delaying the start of the awards.

John Childress, director of sponsored research at Vanderbilt, believes the proposed budget, if enacted by Congress, would exacerbate an already unfavorable trend.

“Unfortunately, most non-NIH, non-defense spending for research over the last five years or so has been supported with only nominal increases,” Childress said. “A continuation of a ‘flat-line’ trend for these research sponsors has to begin to take a toll on the breadth and depth of their research programs.”

He added, “Many of our researchers will be spending a greater portion of their time searching for funding instead of conducting research. VU researchers have weathered well the austere budgets of the past; however, this one appears to decrease research budgets for basic and applied programs across the board in such a way as to limit alternatives that might have existed in the past.”

This type of prognosis is no doubt unsettling for many on campus. It is a concern being felt at research universities around the country.

“Taken together, the inadequate FY06 investments in research proposed by the administration would erode the research and innovative capacity of our nation,” said Nils Hasselmo, president of the Association of American Universities, in a statement released shortly after budget was released.

Looking at the potential impact of the research budgets across several agencies, Hasselmo concluded: “Those in the administration, the Congress and the research community who believe that research in these areas is a key to innovation, long-term economic growth and national security have our work cut out for us.”

Jeff Vincent is Vanderbilt’s assistant vice chancellor for federal relations.

Posted 3/7/05