Notice.
The purpose of this notice is to announce that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will hold a Town Hall meeting to hear comments and insights concerning possible revisions to certain fiscal policies that govern the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards (NRSA), which comprise institutional training grants (T32 and T34s) and individual fellowships (F30, F31, F32, F33). The meeting which is open to the public will focus primarily on the funding of educational costs such as tuition, fees and health insurance provided through institutional training grants. The meeting will be held November 30, 2005 in the Natcher Conference Center, Room E1/E2 on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland.
The largest of the NRSA programs funds institutional training grants that use the T32 mechanism to support both pre- and post-doctoral research training. Currently, the direct cost funding of these programs is segmented into four categories: stipend, tuition/fees/health insurance (referred to collectively as tuition), travel, and training related expenses. The funding levels for three of these (stipend, travel, and training related expenses) are stipulated and controlled by NIH, although each can be adjusted as fiscal circumstances and program needs evolve. The funding for tuition, on the other hand, is not fully controlled by NIH; the funding for tuition is governed by a formula tied to the amount each institution requests for this expense. The formula provides for each T32 trainee the sum of $3,000 plus sixty percent of the requested tuition in excess of $3,000. This formula is used to determine the tuition level provided via each competing grant; that level, once established for a given competing grant, is used for the subsequent non-competing renewal awards during the project period. This formula has been employed since fiscal 1996 and has been modified once.
During the five year growth period, the increased funding devoted to NRSA activities was used for meaningful, and long overdue, trainee stipend increases and for covering some of the escalating requests in the tuition category of training grants. However, in fiscal 2004 and 2005, when there was limited NRSA budget growth, the requests and outlays for tuition continued to rise substantially. Barring other adjustments, the continuation of this trend in tuition growth will result in a significant annual decrease in the number of NRSA trainee positions, and to fewer programs supported by T32 training grants. Since these outcomes could have a substantial disruptive effect on biomedical research training, NIH has frozen the tuition expenses on competing renewals of T32 awards in fiscal 2006. (See
Among the options that will be studied are the following:
1. The current tuition formula could be applied in conjunction with a ceiling; the funds provided would be the amount dictated by the currently-used formula or the amount dictated by the ceiling, whichever is less. The magnitude of the ceiling would be based on the fiscal resources available as well as on applicable data. For the sake of discussion, those offering comments may assume the ceiling could be in the range of $16,000 to $18,000.
2. A fixed allowance could be provided for tuition; the same allowance per trainee would be provided to each
3. The current tuition formula could be retained without modification. Those offering comments may assume that under this option the number of NRSA trainees and funded training grant programs will likely experience a series of year-to-year decreases as long as the current fiscal patterns prevail.
All individuals who wish to attend the meeting should register through the Town Hall meeting's Web site at