Last week the National Institutes of Health announced in a memo a 15% cap on indirect costs for all NIH grants, which cover overhead costs such as facilities, utilities, and administrative costs. Adding insult to injury, this was announced a week after a list of words was released that researchers are now restricted from using in our grant applications, including “women,” “underserved,” and “trauma,” making grant writing feel like walking through a minefield.
As an assistant professor at UC San Diego who will be occupationally crippled by these policies, I want to share my concerns about how they will affect the entire San Diego community, as our region is heavily reliant on jobs in the sciences.
Historically, indirect costs were negotiated between the NIH and the receiving institution and could vary widely due to local conditions such as a high cost of living. For perspective, the rate at UC San Diego for fiscal year 2025 was 59% prior to the Trump administration cuts.
The NIH memo reads, “The United States should have the best medical research in the world. It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead.”
The new rate is meant to bring the indirect costs in line with those allowed by private grant foundations, but this fails to account for the fact that privately funded grants typically rely on publicly funded infrastructure, which ultimately means researchers will need to cut into funds for the research itself to cover infrastructure costs. We are unable to conduct the actual science without these support structures in place.
These cuts, reportedly instituted by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have already received immediate pushback from the courts, but if allowed to move forward they will have profound impacts on San Diego, where a large number of academic institutions, pharmaceutical, and biotech companies reside. Across the county, the life sciences support over 178,000 jobs, including faculty, scientists, and administrative support, accounting for $56.6 billion in economic output in 2023.
The entire life sciences sector in San Diego is supported either directly by NIH funding or by partnerships with NIH-funded researchers at several highly respected research institutions in our area, including UC San Diego, the Salk Institute, Scripps Research Institute, and Sanford Burnham Prebys.
Here is a summary of how I expect this could impact San Diego at the university level and beyond:
Stalled Development of New Treatments: Ongoing studies at universities will have to be halted immediately, and some facilities will likely need to be shuttered. Preventable deaths from cancer, heart disease, and chronic illnesses would likely number in the thousands in our community as a result, and development of effective treatments to mitigate debilitating illnesses would be stalled. Costly for UC San Diego: Based on numbers downloaded from the NIH website, the impact to UC San Diego will amount to over $100 million per year, likely resulting in sweeping layoffs. The university is one of the largest employers in San Diego, with over 20,000 jobs between UCSD and UCSD Health. Possible Loss of World-Class Status: UC San Diego is currently ranked among the top medical schools in the country and also includes a pharmacy school and school of public health. However, as a major research-supported university, loss of NIH support would translate into loss of faculty, students, and physicians, causing a decline in our world-class status. Life Sciences Companies Will Suffer: San Diego is home to 2,153 life science companies that collectively accounted for nearly 17% of our GDP, as of 2023. Because these companies work in close collaboration with publicly funded researchers at our local nonprofit institutions, private industry research and development will be severely handicapped, tanking the San Diego economy. Exodus of Science Talent: In the longer term, this will cause a mass exodus of several thousand young investigators and students from STEM, who dominate our academic institutions in San Diego. Our region, and the U.S. at large, will no longer attract international talent in the sciences. At major universities there will also likely be trickle-down effects to other departments outside of the sciences.Thousands of researchers such as myself may need to leave the country to keep our careers, and many will have to leave scientific research altogether, as other countries do not have the capacity to support us. San Diego currently ranks among the top life sciences labor markets in the country, so the loss of NIH funding will be felt steeply across our region.
We need to call on our Congressional and local leaders to advocate against what will amount to a major blow to our scientific community from DOGE.
Sarah LaMere is an assistant professor at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. This column reflects her individual views and not the views of the University of California, the Regents of the University of California or UC San Diego, its officers, agents, or employees.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Opinon: New Rules on Federal Research Grants Could Cripple Health Science in San Diego )
Also on site :
- On the record: Hubbard
- ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: Oil spike on talk of Israel preparing attack on Iran
- SD man charged in alleged attempt to smuggle 17 exotic birds at San Ysidro border crossing