News

President’s Budget; NIMH Director; Climate & Infectious Diseases

BU IN DC

Ambassador Mark Storella of the Pardee School for Global Studies and more than twenty graduate students met with foreign policy leaders at think tanks, government, and nongovernmental organizations between March 11th and 15th. Storella and Pardee Dean Scott Taylor hosted an alumni reception on March 12th.

Glenn Markenson of the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Lauren Wise of the School of Public Health discussed the need for research on female warfighter health with Massachusetts Congressional offices on March 11th.

Kurt Cavender and Kathryn Lakin of the Center for the Humanities urged Massachusetts lawmakers to invest in humanities research and education during Humanities Advocacy Day on March 12th.

Associate Provost for Graduate Affairs Daniel Kleinman attended the executive committee meeting of the Association of Graduate Schools on March 12th.

Dean Mariette diChristina of the College of Communication attended the Society for Science Board of Trustees meeting on March 13th and the National Academies Standing Committee for the Advancement of Science Communication on March 14th and 15th.

Tami Gouveia of the Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health participated in the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work & Policy's Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill on March 14th.

BIDEN PROPOSES MODEST INCREASES TO RESEARCH, STUDENT AID

President Joe Biden released his proposed budget on Monday, kicking off the fiscal year 2025 budget season as Congress still negotiates the resolution of the education, health, and defense portions of the fiscal year 2024 budget. In line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, the President proposes to cap domestic spending. The President's budget proposal recommends:

• National Institutes of Health: $48.3 billion, 1.7% above the FY23 level
• National Science Foundation: $10.2 billion, 13% above the FY24 level
• Maximum Pell Grant Award: $8145, 10.1% above the FY23 level
• Federal Work Study: $1.2 billion, equal to the FY23 level
• NASA Science: $7.6 billion, 3% above the FY24 level
• Department of Energy Office of Science: $8.6 billion, 4% above the FY24 level
• National Endowment for the Humanities: $200.1 million, 3% below the FY24 level

Congress will hold hearings on the President's recommendations before writing the spending bills that will determine the funding levels for research and student aid in fiscal year 2025.

Read the budget

BUZZ BITS...

• The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) at the National Institutes of Health recently announced that Dr. Joshua Gordon will step down as director of NIMH in June after leading the Institute since 2016. Dr. Gordon will return to Columbia University and chair its psychiatry department. NIMH Deputy Director Shelli Avenevoli will serve as acting director while a national search for the director is conducted.
• On Tuesday, two subcommittees of the House Education and the Workforce Committee held a joint hearing on classifying college athletes as employees. The subcommittees' Republicans argued that allowing student athletes to form unions would lead to colleges eliminating teams, particularly women's teams. Democrats countered that athletes should share in the revenue they generate and that employee status would improve athlete well-being.
• The Biden Administration recently released an update on the progress of the Cancer Moonshot. Among other achievements, the announcement touts new funding opportunities at the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Health (ARPA-H) and a federal Research Data Framework 2.0 to help organizations develop strategies for the management of health and other research data.

EVENTS NEWS YOU CAN USE

The Office of Research will host a Research on Tap session entitled Climate Change and Infectious Diseases on March 27th. School of Public Health faculty David Hamer, Kayoko Shioda, and Gregory Wellenius will convene BU scholars to share their ongoing projects, available resources, datasets, and ideas and facilitate new collaborations within the University. Following lightning talks from several BU researchers, a faculty panel will discuss their efforts to facilitate new research around the topic of climate change and infectious diseases.

RSVP today

NSF & NEH Budgets; State of the Union; DEI on Campus

BU IN DC

Muhammad Zaman of the Center for Forced Displacement discussed his book We Wait for a Miracle: Health Care and the Forcibly Displaced during a talk at the Wilson Center on March 7th.

Tami Gouveia of the Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health met with Massachusetts and Illinois Congressional offices to discuss integrating social workers into health care settings on March 7th.

Rebecca Ray of the Global Development Policy Center testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission regarding shifting global supply chains and Chinese investment in Mexico on March 1st.

CONGRESS APPROVES NSF, NASA, DOE, NEH BUDGETS

Congress is on track to approve the fiscal year 2024 budgets for several science and cultural agencies this week, more than five months after the start of the federal fiscal year. The final budgets, as compared to fiscal year 2023, are as follows:

• National Science Foundation: $9.06 billion, an 8% decrease
• NASA Science: $7.33 billion, a 5.9% decrease
• Department of Energy Office of Science: $8.2 billion, a 1.7% increase
• ARPA-E: $460 million, a 2.1% decrease
• National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities: $207 million each, a 0% increase

The NSF cuts are particularly disappointing given the overwhelming support for the CHIPS and Science Act, which authorized doubling NSF's budget and tasked the agency with creating large-scale innovation programs. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the funding package today. Congress has set a March 22nd deadline to complete work on the remainder of the FY24 federal budget, which includes student aid and medical research agencies.

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BIDEN STATE OF THE UNION HIGHLIGHTS HEALTH RESEARCH, PELL GRANTS

During a State of the Union address on Thursday night that focused on foreign policy and American democracy, President Joe Biden also highlighted his commitment to medical research and student aid. The President touted his proposal to spend $12 billion on the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research and asked lawmakers to continue to invest in the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Health (ARPA-H), which he said "reminds(s) us that we can do big things like end cancer as we know it." Biden also called for increasing spending on Pell Grants for low-income college students and underscored the Administration's work to fix the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Read the speech

HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE HEARS CRITIQUES OF CAMPUS DIVERSITY WORK

On Thursday, the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development held a contentious hearing entitled, "Divisive, Excessive, Ineffective: The Real Impact of DEI on College Campuses." Subcommittee Republicans invited witnesses from several conservative think tanks who asserted that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives waste taxpayer money, that anti-bias training has harmed medical education, and that campus diversity offices "are inherently antisemitic." A witness from a progressive education think tank invited by Subcommittee Democrats countered that the criticisms of campus diversity offices are ideological attacks on democratic principles and academic freedom.

Watch the hearing