The top salary that can be paid out of new National Institutes of Health grants is now capped at $179,700, or a 10 percent reduction from the previous high, reports the Nature News Blog. NIH issued a notice on the matter on Friday, saying that the effective date was December 23, 2011, and the cap would apply to new and continuing awards made from that date on. "Every year since 1990 Congress has legislatively mandated a provision limiting the direct salary that an individual may receive under an NIH grant," the NIH note says, later adding that "this is the first year that the salary limitation has been reduced."
"From a policy-maker's point of view, it may look like just a few thousand dollars [in savings], but it will still have a significant impact on individual investigators and their institutions," says Ann Bonham, the Association of American Medical Colleges' chief scientific officer, at the Nature News Blog.