FASEB Launches Advocacy Campaign to Fight Proposed NIH Funding Cuts

By: Jennifer Zeitzer
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Late on Friday, February 7, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a Guide Notice informing the research community that effective immediately, NIH will impose a standard indirect cost rate of 15 percent on all grants. This notice came without warning and sent shockwaves through the research community and academic institutions across the country. Indirect costs are also known as Facilities and Administration (F&A) costs. F&A funds cover maintenance of shared equipment and resources, compliance with measures to ensure patient privacy and research security, and utilities, such as appropriate management of biohazardous materials. They are real costs necessary to conduct biomedical research at universities and other facilities. Such a significant reduction in F&A rates will stymie the pursuit of research and also risk the safety of those working in or with research facilities.  
 
The core messaging of the NIH Notice appeared in the final paragraph which stated that for any new grant issued, and for all existing grants to Institutions of Higher Learning (IHEs) retroactive to the date of issuance of the Supplemental Guidance, award recipients are subject to a 15 percent indirect cost rate.  The NIH notice further stated that the 15 percent cap will allow grant recipients a reasonable and realistic recovery of indirect costs while helping NIH ensure that grant funds are, to the maximum extent possible, spent on furthering its mission. The policy applies to all current grants for go forward expenses from February 10, 2025, forward as well as for all new grants issued. NIH clarified that the cap would not be applied retroactively back to the initial date of issuance of current grants to IHEs, although the agency believes they would have the authority to do so under 45 CFR 75.414(c).

The new 15 percent cap on F&A costs conflicts with existing rates contracted between institutions and the Department of Health and Human Services. For the majority of research institutions, this flat F&A rate represents a minimum 50 percent decrease in funds that support the facilities where research is conducted. 

In response to the NIH announcement, FASEB issued a statement on February 10, urging the administration to immediately rescind the February 7 announcement. FASEB’s statement noted that while the 15 percent cap was touted as a path towards significant cost savings and increased efficiency, the draconian approach will slow progress towards life-saving research, impede health care delivery, reduce training opportunities for the next generation of scientists, and negatively affect local economies.  

FASEB also issued an e-action alert to more than 20,000 grassroots advocates, urging them to email their Members of Congress to share their concerns about the impact of these unprecedented cuts to research funding. More than 500 emails were sent in the first few hours after the alert was issued. The FASEB alert also recommended that researchers, postdocs, and other lab personnel include examples of expenses that are part of F&A costs incurred by their lab/institution when contacting their elected officials given the lack of understanding about why these expenses are critical to conducting federally funded research. FASEB encourages researchers to forward the e-action alert to their collaborators and anyone who has benefitted from advances in medical research. 

In addition, FASEB shared the statement and e-action alert on the federation’s X and LinkedIn accounts. FASEB urges its social media followers to repost and share these messages to spread the word about the threat to biomedical research funding. NIH funding is distributed to all 50 states and nearly all Congressional districts, as explained in the FASEB’s NIH funding fact sheets. 

Further implementation of the cap on F&A costs will likely depend on the outcome of several pending legal challenges. On the morning of February 10, the attorney generals of 22 states sued the administration, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), and NIH for unlawfully announcing the application of a 15 percent F&A rate. A federal district court judge issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) the same day, blocking DHHS/NIH from implementing the new F&A rate in the 22 states named in the lawsuit. However, the 15 percent F&A rate will still be in effect in the other states, and it is possible that further legal decisions will allow DHHS/NIH to fully implement the new policy in the future. A second lawsuit was filed on February 10 by the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities in the U.S District Court in Massachusetts, along with a number of impacted research university co-plaintiffs, seeking to halt the proposed cut in F&A rates. The co-plaintiffs in the AAU lawsuit are Brown University, Brandeis University, California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Regents of the University of California, Trustees of Tufts College (Tufts University), University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Rochester.

Members of Congress are also starting to express alarm and concern about the proposed cap on F&A costs. Susan Collins, Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued a press release opposing the "arbitrary cap on the indirect costs that are part of NIH grants and negotiated between the grant recipient and NIH.” Collins noted that she called HHS Secretary-Designate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose nomination to be the Secretary of DHHS is still pending, to register her disapproval of the new policy, which also violates a provision attached to the fiscal year 2024 appropriations bill for NIH that prohibits the agency from unilaterally making changes to F&A rates. Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray also released a statement noting that “if NIH cuts off this support, the research will come to a halt.” Alabama Senator Katie Britt was also quoted in multiple press articles expressing a desire to take a more targeted approach to addressing F&A rates given the potential impact on the University of Alabama Birmingham and other institutions in her state. On the other side of Capitol Hill, Representative Rosa DeLauro, the Ranking Member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NIH, issued a statement saying the cap on F&A costs “would cut billions of dollars in funding for life saving research to develop cures and treatments for diseases.” DeLauro also cited the provision that has been included annually in appropriations bills since 2018 that explicitly prohibits any Administration from making changes to F&A rates.