FASEB

In response to a growing level of concern over unmet needs for advanced instrumentation, the Science Policy Committee of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) decided to undertake a systematic look at the way in which current programs were meeting researchers’ needs for major equipment. In November of 1999, a questionnaire was mailed to 1,000 recipients of R01 awards from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to determine the researchers’ views about the following issues: degree of dependence on instrumentation; current funding arrangements; access to equipment; and adequacy of funding for instrumentation, particularly the Shared Instrumentation Grants (SIG) program; and priorities for future federal funding. 508 scientists, representing 51 percent of the sample, returned completed surveys. Survey respondents were similar to all NIH R01 grantees in terms of institutional affiliations, experience as principal investigators and laboratory budgets.

There was strong agreement about the importance of advanced instrumentation for NIH-funded research. Most of the survey respondents (84 percent) responded that, "shared equipment and core facilities at my institution are extremely important for my research." However, a substantial number of scientists reported difficulty in obtaining adequate access to these critical technologies. Almost half of the respondents (48 percent) felt that their institutions were not able to implement new, shared research instrumentation and resources in a timely manner. Only a small percentage of the respondents (5 percent) were strongly supportive of the view that their institutions were able to adopt new technologies in a timely manner.

A sizeable portion of the survey respondents also questioned the adequacy of current funding for shared research equipment. When asked if current funding for the SIG Program was adequate, 42 percent of the respondents responded that it was not. A smaller fraction of the respondents (26 percent) felt that the current level of support for the SIG budget was adequate. Survey respondents expressed even more dissatisfaction over the funds available for shared equipment not covered by the SIG program (instruments costing less than $100,000 involving multiple users). In this case, 55 percent of the respondents did not believe that "the level of funding support from NIH was adequate" and only 17 percent of the researchers supported this statement. Consistent with these findings, the survey respondents placed a high priority on having NIH increase the level of funding for research equipment. A majority of them (65 percent) indicated that increased funding for equipment and equipment-related categories should be one of the top priorities in an expanding federal research budget. In contrast, only 13 percent of the respondents disagreed with this position. Consistent with this perception, survey respondents also placed a very high priority on increased funding for new specialized research equipment within their own research laboratories. For shared equipment and resources, respondents indicated that NIH should invest more funds in establishing new resource facilities employing emerging technologies.

The overall perception of the survey respondents was that equipment and equipment-related needs were unmet and represented a serious problem in the extramural research community. Data from the survey indicates that NIH should invest additional funds to meet these needs.

Recommendations

These amounts actually reflect the minimum funding requirements that exist in the biomedical research community because the survey results were extrapolated to only the NIH R01-population and do not capture the needs of investigators supported by other NIH funding mechanisms or non-NIH funded scientists.

FASEB also proposes that an expanded SIG program be improved by:

The Shared Instrumentation Grants Program

For almost twenty years, the Shared Instrumentation Grant (SIG) program has allowed scientists to obtain equipment and equipment-related items that would be too expensive to purchase with research project grant funding. In existence since 1982 and administered by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), the SIG program has provided researchers with grants ranging between $100,000 to $500,000 to procure state-of-the-art instrumentation. Instruments purchased with SIG funds must be shared by at least three National Institute of Health (NIH)-supported researchers.

The budgets of the SIG Program have not kept pace with the expansion of biomedical research in the 1990s. SIG awards totaled $32.5 million per year in 1990 and 1991, with no appreciable growth in program funds since 1985. In 1992, SIG funds were reduced to $8.8 million and did not rise above $10 million per year until 1996. Only in 1999 did the SIG budget return to the 1990 level. But the 1999 budget for SIG grants ($34.2) – after adjusting for inflation – had less purchasing power than the 1990 budget. In 2000, the SIG budget rose to $43.1 million. But when expressed in 1990 dollars ($30.3 million), it is still below the purchasing power of the program in 1990. Moreover, during this same period the number of research project grants funded by NIH grew from 23,177 in 1990 to a projected 32,942 in 2000 (42 percent), while the research project grant budget increased from $4,640 million to $7,103 million in 1990 dollars (53.1 percent). 1

The Origin of the Study

Over the past several years, the leadership of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and its member societies have been hearing reports of unmet instrumentation needs. These concerns have been raised in society council meetings, in letters from concerned scientists and at consensus conferences. The shared instrumentation issue has been reviewed in nearly every FASEB Federal Funding Consensus Conference from 1993-1999. In the face of these persistent but informal indicators of a more general problem, the Instrumentation and Infrastructure Subcommittee of the Science Policy Committee (David Lester, PhD; Mustafa Lokhandwala, PhD; Fred Naider, PhD; Stephen White, PhD; and David Speicher, PhD, chair) decided to conduct a detailed investigation into this issue. Representatives of the committee met with Judy Vaitukaitis, MD, Director of the NCRR, who provided an overview of NCRR initiatives and data on the Center’s programs. The committee also collected available information on instrumentation assessments conducted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and co-sponsored by the NIH. 2

After reviewing the existing data, the committee concluded that there was a shortage of current information on investigators’ instrumentation needs. The last NSF/NIH instrumentation survey, published in 1994, was based on the views of institutional administrators and did not necessarily reflect the views of individual practicing scientists. Another instrumentation study, an NCCR-contracted overview of the SIG program, was conducted using data from 1993.3 Due to the relative paucity of current data, the committee decided to take a more systematic look at the way in which current programs were meeting researchers’ needs for advanced equipment.

To derive an objective standard of "need," the committee chose to focus on a major group of scientists whose work had already been deemed meritorious: recipients of NIH R01 awards. A series of questions was developed to determine the researchers’ views about the importance of instrumentation, current funding arrangements, access to equipment, and adequacy of funding for instrumentation and priorities for future federal funding.

This report contains the results of the survey of R01 funded investigators. Under the direction of David W. Speicher, of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, PA, and with the collaboration of Tamara R. Zemlo and Howard H. Garrison of the FASEB Office of Public Affairs, the Instrumentation and Infrastructure Subcommittee developed the survey report. The FASEB Science Policy Committee reviewed the final report. On June 6th the FASEB Public Affairs Executive Committee on behalf of the FASEB Board of Directors accepted it.

Survey Methods

FASEB obtained a file listing the names and addresses of all FY 1998 recipients of research project grants from NIH.4 From this file containing the records for 21,145 R01s awarded to 14,745 investigators, a random sample of 1,000 principal investigators was selected. In November of 1999, each member of the sample was sent a short letter announcing the study.5 Two weeks later the NIH-funded investigators received a copy of the survey questionnaire asking them for their views on the adequacy of federal support for instrumentation, the availability of shared resources, and their recommendations regarding federal funding priorities for equipment.

Completed surveys were returned by 508 scientists, 51 percent of the sample when the survey closed in February of 2000. Some members of the sample (e.g., behavioral scientists, epidemiologists, and some clinical researchers) may have not returned questionnaires because their research did not make extensive use of instrumentation. To address the possibility of selection bias in survey responses, characteristics of the survey respondents were compared to those of the entire grantee population and/or the survey non-respondents on three dimensions: experience as head of a laboratory, institutional affiliation and laboratory budgets. On all three measures, no evidence of selection bias was found.6

Results

Importance of Shared Equipment

Most of the survey respondents (61 percent) strongly agreed with the statement "shared equipment and core facilities at my institution are extremely important for my research" (Figure 1). Another 23 percent agreed with this statement for a combined total of nearly 84 percent. This overwhelming appreciation of the importance of shared equipment is very notable and provides a striking endorsement of the role of advanced instrumentation in NIH-funded research.

While NIH-funded investigators reported that shared equipment was very important to their research programs, large numbers encountered difficulties obtaining access to such instrumentation. Only one half of the survey respondents felt that their institutions adequately supported shared research resources such as common use equipment and specialized core facilities (12 percent strongly agreed and 38 percent agreed) (Figure 2). One third of the respondents indicated that their institutions have not adequately supported shared research resources (12 percent strongly disagreed and 21 percent disagreed with the survey question).

A large fraction of the researchers polled (48 percent) felt that their institutions were not able to implement new shared research technologies and required associate equipment in a timely manner (13 percent strongly disagreed and 35 percent disagreed) (Figure 3). Only 5 percent of the respondents strongly agreed and 24 percent agreed with a statement indicating that their institutions were able to adopt new technologies in a timely fashion.

Funding for Instrumentation

Substantial numbers of survey respondents expressed concern about the adequacy of current funding for research equipment. When asked if current funding and management of the NIH SIG program was adequate, 10 percent strongly disagreed and another 32 percent of the respondents disagreed (Figure 4). Just over one-quarter of the respondents felt that the SIG program was adequately funded and managed (4 percent strongly agreed and 22 percent agreed).

The survey respondents expressed even more dissatisfaction over the funds available for shared equipment costing less than $100,000. In this case, 55 percent of the respondents disputed the statement that the level of support from NIH was adequate: 17 percent strongly disagreed and nearly two in five respondents – 38 percent – disagreed (Figure 5). Only 17 percent of the researchers polled strongly agreed or agreed with the statement that NIH funding for this equipment category was adequate. Results were very similar for a question about support for equipment used within the researchers’ own laboratory costing less than $100,000. Over half of the respondents (52 percent) rejected the statement that the level of support from NIH for smaller equipment for individual laboratories was adequate (Figure 6). Of these respondents, 17 percent strongly disagreed and 35 percent disagreed. A much smaller fraction, 32 percent, reported that funding in this area was adequate (28 percent strongly agreed and 4 percent agreed).

Survey Respondents’ Priorities for Federal Funding

When asked if increased funding for equipment and equipment-related categories should be one of the top priorities in an expanding federal research budget, 24 percent strongly agreed and another 41 percent of the sample agreed with the statement (Figure 7). Only 13 percent of the respondents dissented from this position. Consistent with the perception that increased equipment funding should be a major priority, a high percentage of survey respondents indicated that there should be increased funding for new specialized research equipment 7 within their own research laboratories (Figure 8). Following this, they identified having adequate funds to either replace or purchase new routine use equipment 8 as the next highest set of priorities for their own laboratories. For shared equipment and resources, respondents indicated that the most important priority for government funding would be to establish new resource facilities employing emerging technologies (Figure 9). The next most important categories respondents believed should merit support were purchasing new specialized shared equipment and providing adequate technical and/or maintenance support for shared resources.

Survey respondents were asked to specify the shared equipment and equipment-related items they would need to carryout their research programs between 2000 and 2002 (Figure 10). For items costing less than $100,000, PCR systems were identified as the greatest unmet need, and for items costing $100,000 or more imaging technologies such as ultrasound, MRI and CT were identified as the greatest unmet need. To estimate the total cost of the annual shared equipment needs of NIH investigators, the sum of the cost for all the items survey respondents identified as necessary for their future research was extrapolated to the entire R01 population. The responses were divided into two categories: those items costing less than $100,000 and those items costing $100,000 or more. From information provided by the National Center for Research Resources on the average number of users for shared instrumentation in the SIG program, the number of users for each equipment category was estimated. 9 From these approximations and the survey data, FASEB calculates that approximately $75 million annually would be needed to meet the equipment and equipment-related needs for those items costing less than $100,000, and $150 million annually would be needed for those items costing $100,000 or more for the next three years.

Conclusions

The overwhelming majority of the respondents to the survey of R01 grantees indicated that shared research resources are important elements of their research programs. Yet nearly one half of the respondents (48 percent) indicated that their institutions were unable to meet their shared equipment needs in a timely manner. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents reported that increased funding for shared equipment should be a top priority in an expanding research budget.

These views described above were consistent across subsets of the survey sample, reflecting general rather than isolated sentiments. Comparisons across categories of seniority (number of years in charge of a laboratory), primary research institution (medical school, university, etc.), research budget, percentage of funding from NIH, total cost of equipment or percentage of equipment budget from NIH revealed very few statistically significant differences of opinions. The perception that instrumentation needs were unmet and represented a serious problem was widespread and pervasive in the extramural research community. It was not a phenomenon limited to newer investigators, scientists with smaller grants, or researchers with modest equipment budgets.

FASEB Recommendations

FASEB recommends that NIH significantly increase resources to meet the equipment and equipment-related needs of the researchers it funds. While it believes NIH’s foremost obligation is still to support investigator-initiated research, FASEB recognizes that having access to the appropriate equipment is essential for conducting investigator-initiated research. These research tools include routine-use items like incubators and centrifuges and specialized equipment like micro array instruments and x-ray diffractometers. Bioinformatic hardware and software packages are also important to fund since they interface multiple high-tech pieces of equipment and store and process large volumes of data. To catalyze the pace of discovery in biomedicine, NIH should provide greater opportunities for SIG program funding. This critical infusion of support will maximize the rate of return on our investment in scientific research.

In this era of enhanced support for biomedical research, FASEB recommends that NIH equipment-funding mechanisms be substantially expanded to provide for a broader range of new technologies in order to make the most of promising research opportunities. A greatly expanded and more responsive SIG program would allow scientists to procure necessary equipment in a timelier manner. To help achieve these objectives, FASEB proposes that the program be improved by:

Figure Legends

Figure 1: Shared Equipment and Core Facilities Are Essential to My Research

Figure 2: My Institution Adequately Supports Shared Research Resources

Figure 3: New Shared Resource Technologies Are Implemented in a Timely Manner at My Institution

Figure 4: NIH’s Current Level of Support and Management of the SIG Program Is Adequate

Figure 5: NIH’s Current Level of Support for Shared Equipment <$100K Is Adequate

Figure 6: NIH’s Current Level of Support for Equipment in My Own Laboratory Costing $5-$100K Is Adequate

Figure 7: Increased Federal Funding for Equipment Should Be a Top Priority

Figure 8: Choices for Government-Supported Equipment Spending Within My Laboratory

Figure 9: Choices for Government-Supported Equipment Spending for Shared Resources

Figure 10: Survey Respondents Shared Equipment Needs: Top Ten Categories Ranked by Cost

Figure 11: Distribution of NIH Research Project Grants by Institution, 1998

Acknowledgements

The FASEB Office of Public Affairs wishes to thank the members of the Instrumentation and Infrastructure Subcommittee of the Science Policy Committee for the valuable time they devoted to this report.

The FASEB Science Policy Committee

David L. Brautigan, Ph.D., Center for Cell Signaling, University of Virginia. (FASEB Vice President for Science Policy)

Joseph R. Haywood, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Texas Health Science Center. (American Physiological Society)

Frederick Grinnell, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)

*Mustafa F. Lokhandwala, Ph.D. Dean and Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Houston College of Pharmacy. (American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics)

Richard G. Lynch, M.D. Professor and Head, Department of Pathology, University of Iowa College of Medicine. (American Society for Investigative Pathology)

Patsy M. Brannon, Ph.D. Dean, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University. (American Society for Nutritional Science)

Jeffrey A. Frelinger, Ph.D. Kenan Professor and Chairman, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. (The American Association of Immunologists)

Samuel C. Silverstein, M.D. Professor and Chairman, Department of Physiology and Cell Biophysics, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. (American Society for Cell Biology)

*Stephen H. White, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of California-Irvine. (Biophysical Society)

*David S. Lester, Ph.D. Pharmacologist, Food and Drug Administration. (American Association of Anatomists)

Tony E. Hugli, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Immunology, Scripps Research Institute. (The Protein Society)

Nicola C. Partridge, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Physiological Science, St. Louis University School of Medicine. (The American Society for Bone and Mineral Research)

Edward J. Benz, M.D. Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University. (American Society for Clinical Investigation)

Henry M. Kronenberg, M.D. Professor of Medicine and Chief, Endocrine Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital. (The Endocrine Society)

Philip R. Reilly, M.D., J.D., President/CEO, Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, Waltham, Mass. (The American Society of Human Genetics)

Associate Members (non-voting)

Margaret S. Saha, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Biology, College of William and Mary. (Society for Developmental Biology)

*Fred R. Naider, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Chemistry, College of Staten Island, CUNY. (American Peptide Society)

*David W. Speicher, Ph.D. Professor, The Wistar Institute, University of Pennsylvania. (ABRF)

Barry R. Zirkin, Ph.D. Department of Biochemistry, Division of Reproductive Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. (Society for the Study of Reproduction)

Thomas B. Knudsen, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Anatomy, Jefferson Medical College. (Teratology Society)

Ex Officio (non-voting)

David G. Kaufman, M.D., Ph.D. Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. (FASEB President)

Sue P. Duckles, Ph.D. Professor and Associate Dean, Department of Pharmacology, University of California-Irvine College of Medicine. (FASEB Vice-President Elect for Science Policy)

Mary J.C. Hendrix, Ph.D. Professor and Head, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Iowa-College of Medicine. (FASEB President Elect)

Sidney H. Golub, Ph.D. (FASEB Executive Director)

*Members of the Instrumentation and Infrastructure Subcommittee

Endnotes

1 NIH Competing and Noncompeting Research Project Grants by Type at http://silk.nih.gov/public/cbz2zoz.@www.trends99.rpgtype.fy9099.html and FY2001 President’s Budget Press Briefing at http://www4.od.nih.gov/ofm/budget/fy2001Pressbriefing.htm

2 The National Survey of Academic Research Instruments and Instrumentation Needs (Instrumentation Survey) is a congressionally mandated program that collects data concerning scientific research instruments and the academic departments and facilities in which they are located.

3 Evaluation of NIH Shared Instrumentation Grant Program: Reports From Users, published in 1996

4 The authors would like to thank Bob Moore of the NIH Office of Extramural Research for assistance in obtaining information on NIH R01 recipients.

5 Bohne Silber and colleagues at Silber & Associates, Clarksville, MD conducted the survey and data tabulation.

6 The respondents’ primary professional appointment and their annual direct cost laboratory budgets corresponded closely with the profile of the NIH R01 population. Just over one-half of the survey respondents (52%) reported that their primary appointment was in a medical school. A nearly identical fraction of all research project grants from the NIH (54%) were made to investigators with medical school affiliations (Figure 11). There is a slight over-representation of university-based researchers in the survey respondent sample, but in all other categories the distribution of survey respondents is very similar to that of all NIH grantees. The over-representation of university-based researchers in the survey sample may reflect the fact that this group was selected only from the population of R01 grantees rather than recipients of all types of research project grants.

The median direct cost laboratory budget for the survey respondents is $300K. By taking the median direct cost of all competing R01 awards in FY 1999, which was $171K and multiplying it by 1.43 (the average number of R01s per laboratory) and dividing it by 77% (the average percentage of the direct cost budget from NIH), one can obtain an estimate of the direct cost laboratory budget for NIH R01-supported investigators. This amount is $319K, which compares reasonably with the $300K amount from the survey.

It was also possible to compare the survey respondents and non-respondents in terms of the length of time a particular R01 award was retained. Each NIH grant is assigned a unique identification number, part of which consists of a "year of support" field. This field indicates the number of continuous years of support for that grant. For survey respondents, the distribution was 54% for R01s held for less than five years, 25% for R01s held between five and ten years, and 21% for R01s held for greater than 10 years. For the non-respondents, these percentages were 54%, 28% and 18%, respectively. [If an investigator had multiple R01 grants, only the longest-held grant was used in the analysis.]

7 Specialized equipment refers to instruments found in limited numbers in a department or entire institution. Examples are biosensors, cell sorters, mass spectrometers, NMR instruments, confocal microscopes, biomedical imagers, DNA sequencers, X-ray diffractometers, analytical ultracentrifuges, microarray instruments and bioinfomatics hardware/software.

8 Routine use equipment is common research equipment items typically found in most labs and/or departmental common use rooms. Examples are tissue culture hoods and incubators, preparative centrifuges, UV spectrophotometers, scintillation counters and freezers.

9 From the Evaluation of NIH Shared Instrumentation Grant Program: Reports From Users (NCRR), the average number of major users per instrument is 5.2. A major user is defined as a Public Health Service (PHS)-supported investigator who accounts for a significant fraction of instrument use time. The average number of minor users per instrument is 9.0. A minor user may be either PHS-sponsored investigators whose individual share does not constitute a significant percentage of average use time, or investigators whose instrument research is not supported by PHS. Because most of the instruments costing $100,000 or more will likely be shared, the committee assumed that the number of users should be a minimum of five and a maximum of fourteen (five major users and nine minor users). However, it is unlikely that all of the minor users would be R01 recipients. Therefore, the committee estimated ten users (five major users and five minor users) for instruments costing $100,000 or more. For instruments costing less than $100,00, some instruments would be shared and some would not be, so the committee estimated that the average number of users is approximately five.

10 Since funding for high-end equipment (instrumentation costing more than $100,000) is extremely limited, FASEB recommends that NIH provide funding for the total estimated need of the research community: $150 million.

11 For equipment costing less than $100,000 (for which there are other sources of support) FASEB recommends that NIH fund two-thirds of the $75 million estimated need: $50 million.

Research Equipment and Resource Requirements
Of NIH-Supported Investigators:
An Assessment of Current Conditions and
Recommendations for Future Funding and Programs

Tamara R. Zemlo, PhD, MPH; Howard H. Garrison, PhD; David Lester, PhD; Mustafa Lokhandwala, PhD; Fred Naider, PhD; Stephen White, PhD; and David W. Speicher, PhD

The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Md. 20814-3998

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Recommendations

The Shared Instrumentation Grants Program

The Origin of the Study

Survey Methods

Results

Conclusions

FASEB Recommendations

Figure Legends

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

Research Equipment and Resource Requirements Of NIH-Supported Investigators: An Assessment of Current Conditions and Recommendations for Future Funding and Programs

Tamara R. Zemlo, PhD, MPH; Howard H. Garrison, PhD; David Lester, PhD; Mustafa Lokhandwala, PhD; Fred Naider, PhD; Stephen White, PhD; and David W. Speicher, PhD

The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Md. 20814-3998

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Recommendations

The Shared Instrumentation Grants Program

The Origin of the Study

Survey Methods

Results

Conclusions

FASEB Recommendations

Figure Legends

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

Research Equipment and Resource Requirements
Of NIH-Supported Investigators:
An Assessment of Current Conditions and
Recommendations for Future Funding and Programs