Flat funding stifles young scientists, Harvard president tells Congress

After the NIH budget doubled from 1998 through 2003, its funding has been stagnant, resulting in a 13 percent loss in dollars over the last five years when inflation is taken into account. That means grant reviews take longer and the dollar awards are smaller. The average age of a first-time grant winner is 43, up from 39 in 1990. First submissions of grant applications succeed 12 percent of the time, down from 29 percent in 1999.

Labs are shrinking, research is slowing, and less ambitious projects are being proposed in this chillier climate, Faust said.

For the "Broken Pipeline" report, Faust and her colleagues interviewed 12 junior faculty members across the country about the funding plight. Anne Giersch of Harvard, profiled in a Globe story on Monday, said her experience is not unique.

"I hate to think of all the lost opportunities for scientific progress that are going unfunded, and the loss of economic competitiveness that will accrue if these funding trends continue," Giersch told the interviewers.

Kennedy warned that failing to capitalize on recent research advances will be costly.

"If we lose the talents of a generation of young researchers, we put in peril not only medical progress, but America’s leadership in life sciences too," he said. "A culture of innovation and discovery does not just happen. It must be nurtured or it will wither."