By Libby A. Nelson
WASHINGTON — When Steven Warren, the vice chancellor for research at the University of Kansas, sought on Wednesday to describe the effects of several months of across-the-board federal budget cuts on scientific research, it was perhaps inevitable that he chose a scientific metaphor.
On campus, he said, sequestration is “a slow-growing cancer.” The budget cuts went into effect in March, after Congress failed to reach a long-term deal on deficit reduction. They affect a wide range of domestic spending, including money for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other agencies that funnel research dollars to faculty and students at universities nationwide.
A group of chief research officers gathered here for an annual roundtable sponsored by the Association of American Universities and the Science Coalition, an organization of 54 public and private research universities, mostly agreed. In the months since the budget cuts took effect, they said, they’ve already felt some immediate impact on campus: grants canceled for some young scientists, and an overall sense that the peer review selection process for federal money was becoming ever more competitive.
But they said they fear the worst effects of the budget cuts are decades away. The research officers warned that 5 percent cut to research spending, coupled with the generally tighter federal budget environment of recent years, could drive universities to rely more on private donors and industry, curtail interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and hurt a generation of young faculty who will find it even tougher than in the past to get a career-defining research grant.
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