BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER
5
MARCH
2014
Public Affairs
NIH Workforce Diversity
Chief Named
NIH appointed
Hannah Valentine
to the posi-
tion of NIH Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce
Diversity on January 30. According to the NIH
press release, Valentine “will lead the NIH’s efforts
to diversify the biomedical research workforce by
developing a vision and comprehensive strategy
to expand recruitment and retention, and promote
inclusiveness and equity throughout the biomedical
research enterprise.” Valentine joins the NIH from
Stanford University Medical Center, where she
served as the Senior Associate Dean for Diversity
and Leadership and Professor of Cardiovascular
Medicine.
NIH Data Book Shows
FY 2013 Decline
The NIH Data Book, which shows basic summary
statistics on extramural grants, grant applications,
NIH supported trainees and fellows, the US bio-
medical workforce, and more, has been updated
with FY 2013 data.
In her January 10 blog, NIH Deputy Director for
Extramural Research
Sally Rocker
reported that
success rates for R01 grants have declined, the
average size of research project grants (RPG)
has decreased, and the total number of RPG
applications received by NIH decreased as well.
The NIH also saw a decline in incoming applications
for the first time since 2009.
Read the full post at:
/
all/2014/01/10/fy2013-by-the-numbers/.
The NIH Data Book may be found at:
2014 Appropriations
Trend Upwards
Three months after the start of the FY 2014 bud-
get, Congressional Appropriators finally agreed
on how the discretionary funds should be divided.
On January 13, they released the 1,500 page
appropriations package, called the Consolidated
Appropriations Act for 2014. The bill includes a
partial elimination of sequester cuts. For science
funding, it was a move in the right direction, albeit
a small move for NIH. While the NSF, DOE,
NIST, and NASA received increases over their
2013 spending levels ranging from 4.2%-11.2%,
NIH received a 3.5% increase over its 2013 level.
In constant dollars, the NIH budget is approxi-
mately 15% lower than in FY2004. For a general
agency breakdown, see chart below.
President Obama
is scheduled to release his
FY2015 budget on March 5.
FY 2014 Appropriations for Science Agencies (in billions)
Agency
FY 2012
FY 2013 with sequester cuts
FY 2014
NIH
30.046
28,604
29.63
NSF
5.614
6,884
7.172
DOE Office of Science
4.463
4,621
5.071
NASA Science Office
5.399
4,78
5.15
NIST Science & Tech Labs
5.55
5.80
6.51
