NIH Hopes Stimulus Isn't a Roller-Coaster Ride
Summary
The decision by the National Institutes of Health to use the stimulus money not only to fund more projects already in the pipeline but also to run a major new competition, the Challenge Grants, has kept afloat the labs of thousands of investigators whose proposals had just missed the regular funding cutoff, as well as supporting novel research ideas, new investigators, summer students, and large technology projects. But the combination of a huge bolus of money and the additional mouths to feed when the new grants come up for renewal has left many scientists wondering about the real impact of the stimulus spending on the health of the U.S. biomedical research enterprise.
