NIH funding plan would bolster research

The 13.8 percent funding increase for the National Institutes of Health proposed Tuesday by President George W. Bush represents a wise investment in scientific and medical research, says Chancellor John Wiley.

The Bush Administration is recommending a $2.8 billion funding increase for NIH, above its current budget of $20.3 billion. NIH steers the nation’s medical research priorities and is the largest single federal agency devoted to funding university-based research.

At UW–Madison, NIH funding is especially critical, Wiley says, since it comprises more than half of the university’s total federal support for research. The funding supports core research areas aimed at understanding and fighting cancer, heart disease and infectious diseases, and also basic research in genomics, biotechnology and the biological sciences.

“We appreciate the Bush Administration’s leadership on this issue,” says Wiley. “The administration’s support of NIH makes a very strong statement about our national commitment to advancing basic science and human health.”

Wiley adds that the university is looking forward to working with the Bush Administration, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, and Congress in helping advance the NIH proposal.

The Bush proposal represents a continuation of a five-year plan to double the total budget of NIH. The effort has received strong bipartisan support in Congress in the first four years.

UW–Madison will also work toward increasing support for other federal agencies that sponsor research, such as the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, says Rhonda Norsetter, UW- Madison’s special assistant to the chancellor for federal relations.

In fiscal 2001, UW–Madison received $367 million in federal research funding, of which 55 percent came from Health and Human Services. Federal research comprises 24 percent of UW–Madison’s total operating budget of $1.5 billion for 2000-2001.

Last year, UW–Madison ranked fifth among all national universities in total research expenditures.