Cuts to research funding as a result of the sequester will affect graduate student admissions at N.C. State and nationwide. In addition, only one in 10 grant proposals are currently obtaining the required funding, according to Terri Lomax, vice chancellor of Research, Innovation and Economic Development.
“With less of a budget, it’s more discouraging for researchers when these are the odds,” Lomax said.
Sequestration, the series of automatic spending cuts started March 1, was designed to cut spending and save $1.1 trillion between 2013 and 2021. Agencies that fund research had some of the bigger budget cuts with some cuts as high as 7.3 percent in 2013.
Lomax said that private funding from industries has helped offset the federal research funding cuts.
This year, N.C. State received about 77 percent of its research funding, or $176 million, in research grants from the federal government and 7 percent, or $15.4 million, from the state. The remaining $37 million came from private industry, foundations and other sources.
“We were being funded more proportionally last year by industry,” Lomax said. “I don’t think there is a conflict of interest and both are equally valid ways to fund research. Sometimes it’s a combination of private and public funding. We are good at creating partnerships with industries and federal funding.”
In addition to sequester funding problems, not all research proposals are funded. In 2012, proposal funding requests at N.C. State amounted to $942 million but only $286 million were disbursed by the federal government, the state and private industry for research.
As a result of the late funding, many graduate students are having trouble getting into N.C. State.
“Even here, especially with research dollars coming in late, faculty don’t know if they have funding available to support students working on the projects,” Lomax said. “That means some graduate students may not have been accepted to the University because the researchers didn’t know where the funding will come from.”
N.C. State has been getting an increasing amount of funding from the private sector largely due to the efforts made at the University to form partnerships with industries.
From 2012 to 2013, private funding increased by 28 percent or $5.6 million. However, that number is still nowhere near the $176.3 million given by the federal government, leaving some graduate students uncertain about their future as the sequester continues.
“We have to make offers to new graduate students that will be supported by research assistantship and we have to make those offers in the spring,” Lomax said. “But if the researcher hasn’t been notified whether they receive the grant or not, then they can’t commit to supporting the new student.”
Getting funding is not easy either. First, the researcher must have an idea and some preliminary data from working on that idea. Then, he or she must find the right place to propose that idea to—whether it is the National Science Foundation or the National Institute of Health or another agency—and then find a specific program within that agency.
Then he or she writes a proposal that is 25 pages or more and describe their research ideas and evidence and why they deserve the grant, Lomax said.
“It’s a big process,” Lomax said. “Once the proposal is turned in, there are review panels at the agency that are your peers and experts in the field and give a recommendation for how high of a priority that is and if you are qualified for that research. And if it is, you get funded.”
Universities nationwide lost a significant amount of research funding as a result of the sequester. For the most part, N.C. State managed to avoid that trend.
“N.C. State is doing relatively well because our researchers are very competitive,” Lomax said.
According to Lomax, the amount of proposals funded prior to the sequester was low and because of the sequester it’s even lower.
The University did not dodge the bullet entirely. Rather than a massive cut, funding is postponed until the end of the fiscal year.
“Sequestration has definitely affected the funding,” Lomax said. “A lot of agencies held on and didn’t do solicitations for new grants since they didn’t know how the budget will be or waited until the end of the year to start funding instead earlier like they normally would.”
