No Need to Panic

Other bloggers' recent musings on NIH's budget strategy have led DrugMonkey to a point that he says isn't always made clear to new NIH grant seeker: "Reductions to your proposed budget, should you be fortunate to be selected for funding, are routine." Reductions are made with all kinds of reasons in mind, but usually it's so NIH can fund more grants within the same budget, he adds. Say you have R01 proposal that is at the modular limit, $250,000 in direct costs per year, for 10 modules, and you trim 9 of the proposals by about 10 percent. "You end up with 10 projects funded instead of 9. Easy call, from the Program perspective," he says. While budget cuts can hurt a research project, the answer is "to plan for this," he adds. "Recognize that it is very likely that you will suffer a budgetary reduction on funding and make sure you can make the right moves in response."