NIH proposes halt to growth in size of RPGs

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that President Obama’s 13 February proposal to freeze the agency’s budget at just under $31 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2013 will support 9,415 new and competing research project grants (RPGs), an increase of almost 8 per cent above the current fiscal year.

But the agency said on 15 February that, in order to maximise resources for investigator-initiated grants and to continue focussing on resources for young and new researchers, it is proposing to reduce non-competing RPGs by one per cent from the FY2012 level, and to negotiate the budgets of competing RPGs down about one per cent from FY2012.