A 5% reduction in the National Institute of Health’s budget this fiscal year could have far reaching effects for scientific research. And yet, despite the recoil within the research community not everyone is panicking.
Search “research sequester” on Twitter and the results yield a powerful illustration of the controversy surrounding this summer’s $1.7 billion scientific funding shortfall. “To contain US #healthcare costs we need to change the way we deliver care, not reduce NIH-funded research,” tweeted the University Hospital for Albert Einstein College of Medicine (@MontefioreNYC). “Senseless sequester cuts are putting NIH’s life-saving innovative medical research at risk,” tweeted Senator Harry Reid of Nevada (@SenatorReid).
But forensic biomechanical engineer Dr. Geoff Desmoulin — perhaps most famous for hosting Spike TV’s popular show “Deadliest Warrior” — has taken a more positive approach to the sequester. “Universities are now looking outside the ivory tower and typical public funding sources in order to keep labs moving forward, ” he says. “I believe you will see more and more universities collaborating with industry and operating like free enterprise … as resources to fund smaller, less specialized labs weaken.”
Desmoulin, president of GTD Engineering, a scientific consulting company for biomechanical engineering, accident reconstruction and related expertise, views the sequester as a tough but beneficial beginning to a more unified approach to scientific research.
In Desmoulin’s opinion, further collaboration between industry and academia will be the challenging but natural next step toward feeding two scientific needs: the industry’s need for unbiased results and evaluation, and academia’s need for an increase in private funding.
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