Washington

A new way of allocating grants at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) could leave the agency vulnerable to budget cuts, biology researchers have warned.

President George Bush's 2004 budget request, made last week, asks the NIH to award 322 new research grants using a “fully funded” mechanism, under which all the money for the grant would be paid at the start. The NIH usually splits funding into a series of yearly payments made over the lifetime of a grant.

Fully funded grants are aimed at companies in the private sector, which may be deterred by the possibility that their grants could be cut in the years after they are awarded, says Donald Poppke, the NIH's acting associate director for budget. The request also asks the NIH to study whether full funding works, and whether more NIH grants should be paid in this way.

Observers say that researchers might appreciate the certainty that comes with a fully funded grant, but worry that it could make it easier for the government to cut the NIH's budget in subsequent years. “The NIH is potentially vulnerable to cuts if there is no commitment to fund grants beyond their first year,” says Bob Rich, executive associate dean at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.

Steven Teitelbaum, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, points out that this could be particularly difficult in tight fiscal times, such as those being experienced now, when the NIH will be awarding fewer grants than in the immediate past (see Nature 421, 565; 2003). But for the moment, the federation and other advocacy groups have not taken a position on the issue. “It's a new kid on the block,” says Teitelbaum “We're going to have to think about it.”