Researchers all over the world are funded by the National Institutes of Health.Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty
Researchers worldwide who are funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) — the world’s biggest funder of biomedical research — are facing uncertainty about the future of their grants, after the administration of US President Donald Trump seeded turmoil at the agency.
Scientists in dozens of countries receive grants from the NIH, which disburses some US$47 billion in funding each year for science in areas such as cancer and infectious disease. Although international funding does not seem to be specifically threatened by the latest NIH policy changes, some overseas researchers say that concerns about the future of the agency’s funding has spurred them to seek support from other sources.
Revealed: NIH research grants still frozen despite lawsuits challenging Trump order
“The global research endeavour is enormously complex and enormously interdependent, and if a big part of it starts sputtering, the whole thing slows down,” says Ethan Scott, a neuroscientist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, who is a lead investigator on an NIH grant. “It’s difficult to overstate the degree to which the US NIH is one of the major engines behind global biomedical research.”
Grants frozen
As part of efforts to slash US government spending and bureaucracy, the Trump administration has implemented policies that freeze NIH funding and grant reviews. This month, the NIH said it would slash funding for indirect costs, which pay for necessities such as electricity and waste removal at US research institutions. It proposed cutting the rate from an average of around 40% to 15% of grant awards — although the policy is facing legal challenge.
On its website, the NIH lists 811 grants to international teams in more than 60 countries, together worth more than $340 million. The nations with the most awards are South Africa, Canada and the United Kingdom. Grant sizes range from a few thousand dollars to $7 million.
The policy developments “cast a shadow across future planning”, especially for international collaborations involving interdisciplinary research, says Scott, whose grant looks at how the brain of the zebrafish (Danio rerio) processes visual and auditory information. The NIH has “a very generous and outward-looking policy” of funding researchers overseas, grounded in a philosophy of expanding knowledge and advancing medical research, he says. “The uncertainty that arises for international researchers is whether the NIH will consider continuing to send money overseas.”
‘Devastating’ cuts to NIH grants by Trump’s team put on hold by US judge
International collaborations
A researcher in Australia who uses genomic techniques to study health equity and prostate cancer spent their Christmas holiday applying for non-US grants as a backup for the millions of dollars they receive from the NIH and the US Department of Defense. The researcher, who asked to remain anonymous because of fears about their project’s future, says that the collaboration involves some 50 research staff in Australia, the United States and several African countries, among others. “This year I was meant to take a break and just enjoy doing research,” they say. “Instead of taking a break, I’ve just been writing every grant I possibly can,” — for funding from agencies in countries including Australia and the United Kingdom — “anywhere but America”.
The scientist says that applying for other grants could make those application pools more competitive.
