Research universities burdened by Circular A-21, NIH hears

Universities are highly burdened by federal requirements like the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) “Circular A-21”—which establishes principles for determining costs applicable to grants, contracts, and other agreements with educational institutions—the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been told.

Following an NIH request in June for comments from the research community about planned revisions to OMB Circular A-21, the agency has received more than 150, mostly from institutions of higher education, said NIH’s deputy director for extramural research, Sally Rockey, in a 30 November blog post.