Science Funding In A Tanking Economy

Science, invention, discovery--- money.

This is the Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.


The stimulus package is pouring money into research for health, energy, and basic science. And this week President Obama inidcated his budget will mean more money for health care and advancing energy…

((( OBAMA


Rebecca Williams has been following the money… so what are these billions going to mean?

RW: We’re still figuring out exactly where all the cash is gonna go. But it’s a safe bet that a lot of the stimulus money will be going to revamp laboratories... and a lot will go to basic research. And we are talking about a lot of money. - there’s 10 billion heading for the National Institutes of Health and 3 billion to the National Science Foundation and some of that 15-billion the president mentioned is going to the Department of Energy.


Science types like Sam Rankin see all of this as as pretty positive. He chairs the Coalition for National Science Funding.

“This administration and the current Speaker of the House have been very adamant about how important science is and that they want to fund science because they realize it’s an economic driver.”

But here’s the catch. This stimulus money is a one-time thing. What happens then?

The President’s budget indicates there could be sustained funding… but we won’t really know all the details of the budget until sometime in April.


(((STING)))

This is The Environment Report.

As we heard from Rebecca… money for science research is coming… and a lot of scientists are saying… it’s ‘bout time.

State budget cuts and no increases from the federal government have been straining research labs and scientists for years.

Adam Allington reports the effects might not be as obvious or immediate as the house foreclosures and the credit crisis, the effect on science jobs and innovation might be just as bad.

Adam1: At first glance there’s not much in Dale Dorsett’s lab beyond the usual …you know, grad students in white lab coats, centrifuges, test tubes. Even though his lab is relatively small…his costs are not.

He takes me toward a locked room in the back of the lab containing a single microscope.

[Dorsett7] : 10
“It’s a laser scanning confocal microscope, which is essential for part of our work. That cost $350,000, now you know why we keep it locked.”

Adam3: Like many scientists working in biomedicine Dorsett relies on funding from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH.

Except these days Dorsett says he spends more of his time filling out grant applications than he does on his research.

[Dorsett9] :15
“The problem becomes when it gets so competitive that even really deserving projects, or very productive scientists who are doing really good work can’t get funded and that’s the situation we’re in right now.”

Adam4: It used to be… about 30-percent of grant applications were successful. Now… success rate has slipped into the teens…which is a BIG problem

And even those researchers who do get funded say grant preference is often given to projects that produce immediate results…which just isn’t the way most science works.

[Kroll9] :19
“I’m conservative because otherwise the lab would go under.

Adam5: Kristen Kroll runs a lab studying stem cells at Washington University.

“I would love to be more aggressive about what we go after, which connections we try to make to other models. I think I’ve curbed what we could be doing to a point where what we are doing is sustainable in the current funding climate.”

Adam6: Now… you might be thinking… with the stimulus package primed send wave of cash into the coffers of government research agencies…problem solved right?

Not so much. Some science advisors caution that a big pile of cash all at once does nothing for ongoing research that can take years to complete.

And that’s why those scientist are anxious to see the details in the President’s budget… with the hope that they’ll spend less time scraping for money… and more time in the lab.

That’s The Environment Report… I’m Lester Graham.