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  Funding Cuts Ravage Academic Laboratories
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ContributorHomegrown Democrat 
Last EditedHomegrown Democrat  Sep 29, 2013 10:02am
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CategoryGeneral
AuthorMichael Price
News DateThursday, September 26, 2013 04:00:00 PM UTC0:0
DescriptionAccording to several predictions, one of the direst impacts on science of U.S. budget sequestration will be the wide-scale layoff of lab personnel. Last spring, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins predicted that some 20,000 scientists would lose jobs as a result of sequester-related funding reductions.

Science Careers reached out to lab heads and research deans at large and small research universities across the country to try and assess the damage. These interviews suggest that labs are indeed being forced to lay off scientists—mostly nontenure-track staff—but it's difficult to untangle sequestration's effects from longer-term funding woes. Officials we spoke to attributed the recent layoffs to a decade of faltering funding; sequestration, they indicated, is just the latest (if devastating) blow.

Under sequestration, which kicked in on 1 March, funding for academic research from U.S. federal sources, including NIH and the National Science Foundation (NSF), was cut 5% for the 2013 fiscal year. Most existing grants had their funding cut by about 5%—some more; some less. Those agencies also expect to award fewer grants. As a result, labs funded by federal research grants have less money for salaries, lab equipment, and supplies than they used to. It is clear that for those hoping to win new funding, or renew an expiring grant, an already difficult challenge has gotten harder.

The salaries of lab employees, and even some principal investigators (PIs), are paid by these grants, so lost funding often means lost jobs.
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