This article has been updated to note that a federal judge issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on Wednesday afternoon, preventing the implementation of the NIH indirect cost cuts.
NEW YORK – A petition to reverse a recent policy change by the National Institutes of Health capping indirect costs covered by its research grants has garnered support from more than 50 Nobel laureates. The petition was started by researchers at the New York Genome Center last month.
The new NIH policy, issued by the Office of The Director (OD) on Feb. 7, caps so-called indirect costs, which cover facilities, equipment, administration, and maintenance shared by researchers of an institution, at 15 percent for all NIH grants, effective immediately. Up until now, negotiated rates between NIH and research institutions have averaged 27 percent to 28 percent, and in many cases, have been as high as 50 percent or 60 percent. As a justification for its cuts, the NIH policy pointed to a list of private research foundations, which only cover between 10 percent and 15 percent of indirect costs with their grants.
According to the NYGC petition, NIH's abrupt cut of indirect costs to 15 percent will create an "immediate financial shortfall" that will "hinder the recruitment and retention of top scientific talent; delay or derail critical infrastructure investments; increase administrative burdens on researchers; and weaken the US's global leadership in scientific research, technology innovation, and cutting-edge medical advancements."
The new NIH policy has already been contested in court. Last month, several state attorneys sued the NIH to block the cap in indirect costs, calling it "unlawful" and saying that it "will devastate critical public health research at universities and research institutions in the US." On Feb. 21, a federal judge extended an earlier order blocking the implementation of the cap until she decides whether to issue an injunction on the policy change. On Wednesday afternoon, the judge issued a nationwide preliminary injunction.
Among the Nobel Prize-winning scientists who signed the NYGC's petition are several well-known members of the genomics community, including Harold Varmus, a senior associate of the NYGC who directed the NIH from 1993 until 1999 and the National Cancer Institute from 2010 to 2015; CRISPR gene editing pioneer Jennifer Doudna, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley; microRNA discoverer Victor Ambros, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School; RNA biology expert Drew Weissman, a professor of medicine at the Universit of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine; and telomerase discoverer Carold Greider, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
In a statement on Tuesday, NYGC thanked the 54 Nobel Laureates who had signed at that time "for their support of the advancement of scientific research at research institutions nationwide."
The petition, initiated by NYGC CEO and Columbia University professor Tom Maniatis last month, had gathered more than 7,400 signatures as of Wednesday morning.