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Hiring Freezes Magnify the Cons of Grant-Funded Positions

Why current disruptions should make us rethink soft-money research systems.

Key points

  • This week, the NIH and VA were hit with hiring freezes and other disruptions in research.
  • These disruptions are particularly hard for researchers who rely on grant funding to cover their salaries.
  • Research positions reliant on grant funding are susceptible to changing priorities and funding levels.
  • We should use current disruptions to motivate changes that insulate research teams from this instability.

Yesterday, federal agencies, including the NIH and VA, announced an immediate hiring freeze. Job offers were rescinded, orientations canceled, and job ads removed. The NIH also saw cancellations of grant review panels, bans on travel, and a communications pause. These actions will have far-reaching consequences in many realms but have the potential to devastate grant-funded biomedical research, as NIH is the main funder of this research in the U.S. and the world.

Without the ability to hire, NIH and VA researchers cannot bring on staff to help execute previously funded research studies, wasting time and resources. If grant funding dries up or is heavily restricted, new studies will not be funded, resulting in the abandonment of research projects, job losses for research staff, and fewer training opportunities for students and early career researchers.

Lack of grant funding is particularly devastating for researchers on “soft money,” or those who rely on grant funding to cover their salaries. Many researchers, especially those in hospital systems and medical schools, fund their own salaries with grant dollars. This arrangement works well for institutions, which do not have to pay for researchers’ salaries and also collect overhead payments on grants.

Source: Kaboompics/Pexels

The number of researchers relying on grant funding for their salaries has increased over time, making jobs less secure and researchers subject to the whims of research fads and politicians’ decisions regarding funding. The current hiring freeze and other actions bring into relief the negative consequences of relying on this type of funding—when funding streams are in jeopardy, researchers’ jobs are at risk and entire research programs may disappear, making previous funding provided to these researchers less valuable and holding back progress. While the short-term benefits of these positions are appealing, the long-term drawbacks are significant.

Institutional change and a restructuring of incentives are not quick or easy, but the drawbacks of relying solely on externally funded grants instead of institutional funding to fund research positions are clearer than they have been for some time. If we want to ensure the integrity of research efforts and build reliable research teams and institutions that have long-lasting impact, we must insulate them, as best we can, from the type of hiring freezes and other actions we are currently experiencing.

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