The Scientist: NewsBlog:
NIH stimulus grants for postdocs
Posted by Bob Grant
[Entry posted at 27th March 2009 08:36 PM GMT]
The National Institutes of Health, awash in $10 billion dollars of stimulus cash and scrambling to get it out the door, has announced a new round of supplemental grants that aim to retain or hire new postdoctoral fellows in the labs of NIH-funded investigators.
These "administrative supplements" are meant to "promote job creation and economic development along with accelerating the pace and achievement of scientific research," according to the NIH announcement describing the grants. The NIH has now announced three rounds of supplementary funding--the two previous rounds requested applications for money to upgrade equipment or to undertake new construction--available to NIH-funded researchers. The agency aims to funnel $1 billion of its stimulus money through these three programs by September 10, 2010. Raynard Kington, acting NIH director, told The Scientist that such supplementary grants represent a way for the NIH to award grant money efficiently. "This is actually a quicker way than to start grants de novo," he said. "If we stopped to create a new program, we couldn't get it out in time." Successful applicants who seek to supplement their NIH Research Grants can expect "not more than 50 percent of the amount of the parent grant," according to the NIH. Supplements to Research Career Development Awards, however, will generally be limited to requests of $50,000. You can find the instructions for applying to these grants, for which an application deadline has not yet been defined, here. April will be a busy month for researchers hoping to attract some of the NIH stimulus cash. The deadline for the recently-announced Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research is April 27th. Stay tuned to The Scientist for a comprehensive guide to getting a slice of the NIH stimulus pie as application deadlines near. Related stories: [4th March 2009] [19th February 2009] |
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Outrageous
by anonymous poster
[Comment posted 2009-04-16 14:22:46]
[Comment posted 2009-04-16 14:22:46]
Who need more postdocs, may be they can raise the salary of existing postdocs, that way we can go out and spend to stimulate the economy or at the very least creat more Career development awards. Postdocs are way underpay and is becoming a regular position not short time as it used to be. Postdocs are now in their late 30 early 40 with families and kids to raise, yet no reel jobs. May be postdocs can finally wake up and demand more respect and money from the scientific community, I am sick and tired of this situation
Short Sighted
by anonymous poster
[Comment posted 2009-03-31 12:05:26]
[Comment posted 2009-03-31 12:05:26]
Propping up the current scientific pyramid with more post-docs is only going to exacerbate the labour crisis in science. It is time for the NIH to think through the long-term impact of creating additional research training positions without creating proportionally more faculty or staff positions at universities, colleges and national labs. This effect will be particularly acute with state budget shortfalls and hiring freezes at many universities. This money should be used to fund real jobs - full-time, research positions - not temporary, marginal positions. The stimulus could also be used to retrain young scientists to prepare them for the non-research careers they will likely eventually pursue, such as business.
NIH stimulus grants for postdocs
by santhosh mukundan
[Comment posted 2009-03-30 15:55:45]
[Comment posted 2009-03-30 15:55:45]
Is it for post-docs of for Summer students?
Unbelievable
i just cannot understand who comes up with this stupidest and outrageous ideas. suppose we hire more post-docs because of the stimulus money, what happens when the stimulus money runs out down the road, and NIH budget gets back to normal? now we have a situation where we have lot more people in the field (which is already overflowing with grad students and post-docs) and a less money scenario. the PI's will have no choice but to start laying off people. why can't they start promoting transition grants for the existing post-docs instead with the stimulus package?. this would help in advancing their careers, and also opens door to new ideas of research from the current post-docs. further it will increase their chance of landing good academic positions. then they can start hiring people for their own lab. this way i think is much more stable in the long run than this patch work which i dont think will help (atleast) in the science field.
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