Grants technical assistants (GTAs) are the unseen shepherds of grant applications at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH): they track and file paperwork, schedule meetings, copy documents and type up memos. There were once more than 900 of them stationed across the 27 NIH institutes and centers. But soon their numbers will drop to less than 700, and they will answer not to grants managers at individual institutes, but to the NIH director's office.

Just how changes like this one will affect the NIH's scientific mission and its daily operation is now a matter of debate at the NIH and in Congress. The NIH and other federal agencies are busy reviewing and rethinking job assignments, as they try to comply with a White House push to privatize thousands of positions. NIH officials say the program will save taxpayers' dollars and streamline operations, but not everyone is convinced.

Ellie Ehrenfeld, a virologist at the NIH's Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, had a close-up view of the GTA review process as it unfolded last year. She recently returned to her lab full time after seven years as director of the NIH Center for Scientific Review, the office that handles peer review for grant applications.

“The way [the review] was implemented was both demoralizing and interfered with the conduct of our regular work,” Ehrenfeld says. “The environment was [one where] everything else is falling apart because we are expected to spend a great amount of time doing this.”

No one questions the principle of analyzing NIH jobs with an eye toward greater efficiency, says Ehrenfeld. But there is not enough time to do that properly, she says. A group of five lawmakers, led by Democratic Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, shares her concerns and has asked the White House Office of Budget and Management to back off its stance on privatization.

“No one would take issue with the goal of making NIH more efficient,” they wrote in a letter to the White House (Nature 425, 888; 2003). “But scientists inside and outside of NIH have indicated that this aggressive approach is undermining the advancement of science.”

The GTAs were the first of potentially 4,600 NIH employees who discovered last year that they would have to compete with private contractors for their jobs. In September, the NIH reorganized the GTA program, cut staff and successfully bid on a contract for services they already perform.

Change—even for the better—can be disruptive, says Tim Wheeles, who is handling much of the outsourcing for the NIH. “We knew that it was going to be difficult, but we thought it was the most advantageous approach,” Wheeles says.

It is too early to know how these changes will affect scientists, who last year vied for nearly $17 billion in NIH funding. “The process itself seemed to be rushed through, without due consideration for the cost savings or for those who will lose comparable benefits working for private contractors,” says one GTA. “I wonder if the costs are at the expense of the research mission.”