US Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar hear from graduate student Joshua Krueger (R) and Prof. Joseph Skeate (2nd from left) in the lab of Profs. Branden Moriarity (4th from left) and Beau Webber (6th from left) about research into cancer immunotherapy. Proposed cuts to NIH funding would affect the ability of labs like this one to pursue potentially life-changing lines of research (photo: UMN/Eric Miller).
In the wake of a proposal to reduce National Institutes of Health funding for biomedical research, US Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith recently visited University of Minnesota researchers to learn more about their work and the possible significant effects of the proposed cuts.
The University estimates that the cost of capping NIH to 15% as is proposed by the federal government (but now halted by the courts) would cost the institution between $100 million and $130 million annually.
Such a cut would significantly reduce the ability of faculty, staff, and graduate students to perform research that often leads to cures and treatments for all kinds of health conditions, narrowing the types of questions and understanding they could pursue. It could also disrupt the lives of patients currently in clinical trials that would have to be stopped; undercut the training pipeline for the next generation of researchers and other professionals in healthcare and other key industries; risk the loss of real jobs in Minnesota for people who deliver care, keep people safe, and coordinate access to life-changing research and solutions; and slow the generation and growth of University startup companies and other technology transfer vital to new cures and treatments.
On the afternoon of Friday, February 14, Sens. Klobuchar and Smith visited the Cancer and Cardiovascular Research Building on the Twin Cities campus. They were greeted by President Rebecca Cunningham and Prof. David Largaespada of the Departments of Pediatrics and Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development and the Interim Deputy Director for the Masonic Cancer Center at University of Minnesota, who briefed the senators and their staff on the importance of indirect cost recovery to the University’s research enterprise. They then visited several active labs working at the cutting edge of biomedical research, and held a news conference to underline their concerns with the proposed cuts to research.
In FY2024, the University incurred nearly $500 million in reimbursable costs on awards received directly from NIH and from NIH awardees who gave subawards to University researchers. Of those costs, approximately $362 million were for direct costs, and $136 million were for indirect costs.
The University negotiates an indirect cost rate with the federal government every four years, and the current rate for research grants is 54% of a given grant’s value (minus a few mandated exclusions). As a simplified example, a $1 million dollar grant would also come with an additional $540,000 to cover indirect costs
Reimbursement for indirect costs, also called Facilities and Administrative costs, allows the University to recover very real infrastructure costs such as the construction and maintenance of buildings and shared research facilities, utilities, libraries, and central and departmental staff required to run federally funded projects and comply with federal regulations on research security, safety, and finances. This UMN handout and this handout from US higher ed associations outline some of the types of indirect costs that these funds support.
