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The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) is calling for a 15 per cent increase in the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2000.

FASEB, which represents 56,000 researchers in 17 life-science societies, wants a $2.3 billion boost for the biomedical agency, currently running on $15.6 billion a year. This would bring its budget up to almost $18 billion. The increase would keep the agency on track to double its budget over the five years from 1998 to 2003, as many of its supporters are advocating.

The federation issued the call last week in an annual report that also seeks a 15 per cent increase for the National Science Foundation, to $4.2 billion. Meanwhile, in background material to President Clinton's State of the Union address on 19 January, the White House indicated that the president's forthcoming budget would ask Congress for only $320 million in new funds for NIH — about a 2 per cent increase.

If past patterns are any indication, Congress is likely to provide more than the White House requests. But it is not clear that, working within strict spending caps imposed by a 1997 budget law, Congress can or will produce a 15 per cent increase for the second year running. Last year, NIH landed a $2 billion, 15 per cent increase.

FASEB president William Brinkley, a cell biologist who is vice-president for Graduate Sciences and dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said he was confident of achieving the increase “because of the commitment of our [Congressional] champions”, Congressman John Porter (Republican, Illinois) and Senator Arlen Specter (Republican, Pennsylvania).

Porter and Specter chair, respectively, the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees that fund NIH.

Brinkley said he felt confident that Porter was “committed” to achieving a 15 per cent NIH increase, since Porter had told FASEB officials recently: “It's going to be very difficult, but it can be done.”

Brinkley and other FASEB officials are concerned that if NIH receives a significantly smaller increase, such as the amount the White House is requesting, the agency's ability to fund new investigator-initiated grants would fall off dramatically.

This is because so much of its money would already be committed to multi-year grants initiated in preceding years. The biomedical research agency is funding about 9,100 new grants this year.