With funds about to flow from the new economic stimulus package, Duke officials are gearing up to help campus researchers take advantage of the new resources.
A team of campus leaders has been meeting to identify initiatives the university might undertake to respond to the package's priorities.
"We are reaching out to the faculty directly as the funding agencies continue to finalize their procedures," said James Siedow, vice provost for research. "Investigators have already begun hearing from federal officials about supplements to their grants."
The steering committee led by Siedow and others is also reviewing procedures to ensure Duke is poised to reassign or hire research staff quickly, account for new funds and otherwise respond to new federal requirements for the funds.
"Our goal is for Duke to receive as much of the stimulus funding as possible while ensuring we pursue science at the highest level and promote the employment and other economic goals Congress had in mind when it approved this," Siedow said.
Duke Human Resource's website has just launched a webpage seeking applicants for potential jobs directly related to anticipated funds. Depending on stimulus funding, research, technical and clerical support positions may be available.
The Office of Research Support (ORS) is designing a website to centralize all economic stimulus-related information at Duke. Multiple campus research sites, including ORS, Office of Research Administration, and Research Administration Continuous Improvement (RACI), will feature a link to the centralized page, and campus officials expect the site to go live early next week.
Duke officials say that although the stimulus package may have the most immediate impact on campus research, it is only the most obvious example of the new Obama administration renewing federal support for science, a trend Provost Peter Lange called "extraordinary and essential to our country's long-term prosperity and leadership."
Beginning with the stimulus bill, Washington has provided unprecedented levels of funding for agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy's Office of Science. The stimulus package alone will funnel more than $15 billion into research projects and laboratory renovations, with Duke researchers eligible to apply for much of these funds.
Congress also recently passed the FY09 omnibus appropriations bill, which boosted science research funding to $59.4 billion, or $2.6 billion above the previous year's level. In its budget outline for the coming year, the Obama administration does not specify an overall research investment but does include increases over the FY09 budget for NIH, the NSF and the Department of Energy's Office of Science. In the presidential message accompanying the FY10 budget request, the President pledges to "invest in the science, research, and technology that will lead to new medical breakthroughs, new discoveries, and entire new industries."
The current funding levels and proposals of future investments are encouraging, according to Melissa Vetterkind, assistant director of Duke's Office of Federal Relations. "For the past couple of years, innovation and science have been political buzzwords, yet funding hasn't necessarily followed. So far, it looks like the new administration is serious about making a more appropriate investment in basic research, which ends up benefiting the public with everything from better health care to new kinds of jobs."
Chris Simmons, who heads the federal relations office, hopes that the Obama administration's approach to science will continue to include serious and sustained investment rather than erratic funding from year to year. Simmons also said that some of the administration's initial pro-science actions could be an indication that support of science will extend beyond funding increases.
"During the past several years, many researchers experienced a politicizing of science and research," Simmons said. "That's changed dramatically since the election. It's clear from the President's appointments, his positions on climate change and his scientific integrity memo that federal science policy has a bright future in Washington."
The memo to which Simmons refers is the Presidential Memorandum that Obama recently issued, calling for "scientific integrity" throughout the executive branch. In addition, the December appointments of physicist John Holdren to become the presidential science adviser and Nobel laureate Steven Chu to head the Department of Energy highlighted the prominent roles that accomplished scientists are receiving in the new leadership. More recently, Obama issued an executive order reversing the Bush administration's ban on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research.
Many researchers, including some at Duke, saw the latter decision as opening the door for possible new lines of investigation into both embryonic and other kinds of stem cells. "While Duke researchers have placed greater emphasis on adult stem cells, and on basic research at the cellular level, the reversal of the ban is great news for the scientific community," said Paul Vick, who oversees government relations in the health system.