Collins 'a Guy in a Hurry' for Translational Research
14/12/10 20:40 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Submitted by S. Pelech - Kinexus on Tue, 12/14/2010 - 20:40.
The proposal from Dr. Collins to establish a National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences will most likely further exacerbate an already very difficult funding situation for basic researchers in the U.S.
In Canada, we have several virtual biomedical research institutes that are funded as part of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). A very significant portion of the total CIHR funding is highly targeted through Strategic Research Initiatives. After a decade of steady erosion of basic research funding for individual operating grant applications, a lot of Canadian academic researchers are extremely disgruntled. This has been reflected in an online petition with over 1300 signatures and comments from Canadian scientists demanding a significant improvement with the current 85% failure rate with CIHR grant applications. This petition and its signatories can be viewed at:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/cihrfunding
Link to the original blog post.
The proposal from Dr. Collins to establish a National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences will most likely further exacerbate an already very difficult funding situation for basic researchers in the U.S.
In Canada, we have several virtual biomedical research institutes that are funded as part of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). A very significant portion of the total CIHR funding is highly targeted through Strategic Research Initiatives. After a decade of steady erosion of basic research funding for individual operating grant applications, a lot of Canadian academic researchers are extremely disgruntled. This has been reflected in an online petition with over 1300 signatures and comments from Canadian scientists demanding a significant improvement with the current 85% failure rate with CIHR grant applications. This petition and its signatories can be viewed at:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/cihrfunding
Link to the original blog post.