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National Institutes of Health FY 2009 Funding

			Related Resources Summary of the President's FY 2009 NIH Budget National Institutes of Health NIH Office of Budget Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research AAMC Documents FY 2008 Appropriations Table NIH Salary Cap

Current Status

On February 4, President Bush sent his Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 budget to Congress. The President's budget requests $29.230 billion in discretionary budget authority for NIH through the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations, which freezes the agency's budget at the FY 2008 appropriation level.

AAMC Action

The AAMC supports the recommendation of the Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research, which calls for a $1.9 billion (6.6 percent) increase percent increase in the NIH, for a total of $31.1 billion in FY 2009.

Administration Activity

The President's budget requests $29.230 billion in discretionary budget authority for NIH through the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations, which freezes the agency's budget at the FY 2008 appropriation level. The budget also assumes $78 million though the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee for the transfer from the Superfund to the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), $150 million in mandatory appropriations for type I diabetes, and $8 million in evaluation funds for the National Library of Medicine (NLM), for a program level of $29.465 billion, the same as in FY 2008.

In addition, the budget proposes to transfer $300 million from NIH to the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This is an increase of $5 million over the FY 2008 transfer.

According to the agency's Congressional Justification, the President's budget would support 9,757 new and competing renewal research project grants (RPGs), a decrease of 14 from FY 2008, and a total of 36,526 RPGs, an increase of 17 over last year. The budget proposes again to eliminate inflationary increases for RPGs. While the budget assumes no inflationary increases are provided for direct, recurring costs in non-competing RPGs, increases will be provided where NIH has committed to a programmatic increase in an award. The average cost of competing RPGs will remain at the FY 2008 level.

The President's budget proposes to increase support for research centers to $2.963 billion, a 0.7 percent increase above the FY 2008 level, to provide program growth for the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs).

For training, the budget proposes modest stipend increases of 1 percent for both pre- and post-doctoral fellows. Pre-doctoral fellows, who currently receive $20,772, have not seen a stipend increase since FY 2004. Post-doctoral fellows, who begin at $36,996, have not seen a stipend increase since FY 2006 (for 0 to 1 year of experience only). The budget would support 17,586 Full-Time Training Positions (FTTPs), an increase of 17 FTTPs over the FY 2008 level.

The budget once again proposes to reduce the cap on salaries on extramural grants to Executive Level II ($172,200 in 2008). Extramural salaries are currently capped at Executive Level I ($191,300 in 2008).

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