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Stung by what it regards as an inequitable distribution of funds in the next fiscal year's budget for research directorates at the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is lobbying the US Congress for the Biological Sciences Directorate to get its share of an additional $348 million appropriation approved on July 25 by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"We want the funding to be equally distributed among the directorates," Adrienne Froelich, the AIBS' director of public policy, told The Scientist. The entire Senate has yet to approve the NSF budget.
In an email alert, the Institute on Monday, August 13 called on members to fax letters to their Congressional representatives. The group, which represents 87 member societies with interests ranging from entomology to marine biology, also posted a letter that members can sign on its web site.
According to the alert, the Biological Sciences directorate gets a 3.4% boost in funding in the budget, while other directorates get increases ranging from 12 to 20%.
The previous year's budget also skimped on funding for the Biological Sciences Directorate, according to Froelich, giving it only about "half as much of an increase as the rest of the directorates. We thought that was troublesome," she said.
The current budget distribution has resulted in just under one fifth of grant proposals to NSF getting funded, states the alert. "They've been tracking consistently 5 to 10 percentage points below the overall NSF success rate," she says. According to a graph on AIBS website, overall NSF rate is around 22% for current fiscal year.
One possible reason for the distribution is the large increase in NIH funding, according to Froelich, leading those controlling the budget levers to believe that biology, in general is well-funded.
Manny Van Pelt, a public affairs officer at the NSF, declined to comment on the issue, saying the budget had not yet passed. Staffers at the Senate Appropriations Committee were not available for comment.
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