DESCRIPTION OF EACH NIH GRANT PROGRAM

The data presented below include data from the National Institute of Mental Health through 1966. NIMH became a separate Bureau in 1967. The data includes the Division of Environmental Health Sciences beginning with 1967 when it became an NIH component. It does not include the activities of the Bureau of Health Manpower Education and the National Library of Medicine, although they became components of NIH in 1970.

REGULAR RESEARCH GRANTS

1. Purpose of program

To provide grant support of research in health, medicine, and allied fields with the major objectives (1) of continuing existing programs of research, (2) of expanding medical and biological research activities in universities, hospitals, laboratories, and other public or private institutions and (3) of stimulating new investigations in fields needing exploration. The grants range from support of smaller, discrete, and circumscribed projects, which are defined as project grants, to support of broad programs which integrate the research interests of several investigators, and which are called program project grants.

The modest cancer grants program of 1938-1945 of less than $100,000 annually changed in 1946 to a health, medicine, and related sciences program of $780,000. Steady annual increases since 1946 have produced the 1971 program of about $663,000,000 in regular and special research grant programs. In order to maintain a stable number of research grants and investigators, NIH began in 1969 to negotiate individual competing projects downward by an average of approximately 10% below the 1968 level. This action was necessary because of the cutback required in the Revenue and Expenditure Control act of 1968. Reductions were necessary in 1970 and are again in 1971. Although the above table reflects an increase in 1971 funds these are largely for new programs and it will be necessary to continue downward negotiations of ongoing projects. While the program continues in major part to support the ideas of investigators in the grantee institutions, a significant part of the grants provide support of programs reflecting initiative of NIH staff, such as cancer chemotherapy and psychopharmacology. NIH plans to significantly reduce negotiation of grants for fiscal reasons in FY 1972 with hopeful complete elimination in FY 1973.

The NIH believes that medical research should continue to expand as long as this country is faced with major crippling and killing diseases and conditions. Further, it believes that a number of factors contribute together to provide full assurance that substantial expansion can be effected. These factors include (1) a sharp expansion in the population base from which new M. D. 's and Ph. D's will be drawn, (2) a steadily rising college enrollment, (3) significant

percentage increase in graduate enrollment, and (4) improving educational opportunities for the more talented students, including both new medical schools and strengthened graduate and professional schools.

i. Purpose of program

GENERAL RESEARCH SUPPORT GRANTS

To provide funds for the general support of the medical research and research training programs of institutions under conditions enabling the recipients to meet needs which could not be effectively met by other forms of support. The grants can be utilized for such purposes as capitalizing on emerging research opportunities, exploring new and unorthodox ideas, or stimulating and developing an over-all research or research training program. The broad type of support made possible through these grants can enable an institution to achieve a better balance of their total research and training programs, and permit the recipient institutions to strengthen their overall biomedical research capabilities under conditions and in directions of their own choice.

2. Funds

The amount available for distribution to this program constitutes "such uniform percentage, not to exceed 15 per centum, as the Surgeon General may determine, of the amounts provided for grants for research projects for any fiscal year through the appropriations for the National Institutes of Health..." (Public Law 86-798).

An amount for NIMH is included here (1967--$6,434,000; 1968--$5,483,000; 1969--$7,755,000; 1970--$7,367,000; 1971--$8,027,000; 1972--$8,027,000) inasmuch as the total is obligated through NIH.

3. Present stage of development

In 1971 general research support grants will provide support for 326 health professional schools, hospitals, research institutes, laboratories, centers and certain other nonprofit research organizations heavily engaged in health related research. In addition approximately 112 academic institutions other than health professional schools will be supported. Approximately 9 institutional advancement awards will also be made. These awards are intended to encourage the recipient institutions to enter the health research field for the first time or to expand and improve their present biomedical research activities.

4. Plans for the future

The 1972 President's budget represents a decrease of $5,000,000 from the 1971 level. It provides support for 333 institutions or organizations under the basic program, 116 biomedical sciences support grants to academic institutions and 4 Health Sciences Advancement Awards. The reduction was made on the basis that overall medical research efforts would be best served by programming available funds toward well-defined Institute research programs rather than on the more generalized basis effected through this program.

INTERNATIONAL CENTERS FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH AND TRAINING

1. Purpose of program

Research grants are awarded in this program to American universities to enable these universities to establish centers within both their own organizations, and in affiliate centers within foreign institutions to broaden collaborative research and research training in the biomedical fields to take advantage of unique biomedical problems in foreign countries which are of vital concern to the USA.

2. Funds

In 1961, this program was administered by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and supported by six of the Institutes plus the Division of General Medical Sciences. This same situation existed in 1962 except for the absorption by Allergy of the support of Heart and Arthritis Institutes. In 1963, the program was administered by the Office of International Research, OIR, part of the Office of the Director, NIH. In 1964, OIR was incorporated into the GRS appropriation. In 1969 this activity was transferred to the NIA ID and is the responsibility of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The initial phase of the program devoted to the administratively complex task of developing foreign research resources in collaboration with selected foreign universities and research institutions has been completed in each of the centers. All centers are now actively engaged in specific research projects.

A substantial portion of current research is focused upon the demography, epidemiology, and ecology of disease states which are of concern to the United States and the host nation. A multidisciplinary approach is being developed within the several centers to study more effectively the complex biomedical problems which prevail at the foreign sites. As a consequence, professional staffs are being developed and trained to investigate, through a selective amalgamation of basic science, clinical and public health research methods, not only tropical diseases, but a wide variety of other disease states which exist in these countries. Accordingly, the scientific programs in each center will progressively encompass a wide spectrum of factors which directly or indirectly influence disease in the United States and abroad.

These programs include studies of environmental factors which may be related to the development and persistence of acute and chronic diseases. The presence of distinct ethnic and demographic groups in foreign areas permit studies in depth of physical and biomedical factors which may be involved in racial susceptibility to disease.

In addition to the research in progress and being planned, each university has an effective training program for U. S. citizens at both the domestic and overseas sites. During 1971 the program was broadened to offer scientific opportunities for investigators from all U. S. medical schools and schools of public health.