Potential Grant Ideas for 2009 Stimulus

Billions to be Allocated to Scientific Infrastructure

Feb 17, 2009 Tim Atkinson

As Mr. Obama's pen meets paper, scientists are planning to write checks, but before they do that, they will probably have to write a grant.

Science labs at universities face cutbacks in light of the current downfall, but the new economic stimulus legislation is designed to prevent these disasters. This could also mean opportunity for new grant writers if they know where to look.

Health Research

NIH reported that the bulk of its funds go to nearly 3,000 university research and other research related institutions in the U.S. NIH funding has been flat for the past 4 or 5 years, a condition that has effectively stalled good applications in the funding pipeline. As the new stimulus bill stands, $10 billion is proposed to prop up the National Institutes of Health to help blast the logjam. The bill specifically mentions Biomedical research, which covers a wide range of health and disease related research projects.

Science in General

In general, $120 billion has been allocated to science, which has multiple meanings when applied to each agency. Science in HR 1 includes agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF). For obvious reasons, science also applies to the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Defense (DoD) for research into renewable energy sources, and investment in new technology.

NASA's allocation language includes "science" and "aeronautics", which leads one to believe that the agency has leeway to allocate the money within these parameters. Within the same legislation, support is built in for "cross agency support" for NASA, which encourages the agency to work with other scientific agencies to push scientific programs.

NSF's allocation is for "research" and "research related activities", equally broad, along with "major equipment" and facilities. Most of these programs are administered through existing grant mechanisms, but we won't know until the spending push. The advice here is to keep an eye on the funding agency websites for instructions.

Research

The term "research" appears quite a bit, signaling that grant opportunities could be coming soon. For instance, the allocation language includes disability research under the Department of Education and "energy research incentives" which increases the tax credit for research into energy problems.

Also, for the computer scientists and engineers, the bill includes language that calls for the National High-Performance Computing program to create research and development programs focusing on infrastructure, data security and Health Information Tech research. The U.S. Geological Survey will also be allocated a fund for "surveys, investigations and research".

The downstream effects of the stimulus bill on science alone overall could help in the long run, because grant funds must be spent within a strict time period or be returned. There is a lot of spending in the bill, but one must remember that many of these programs could jumpstart other businesses. Grant dollars are used to buy high dollar sophisticated equipment, specialized supplies and pay salaries. With such broad application in the language, it is a good time to scan the agency websites and sign up for their newsletters.

The copyright of the article Potential Grant Ideas for 2009 Stimulus in American Affairs is owned by Tim Atkinson. Permission to republish Potential Grant Ideas for 2009 Stimulus in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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