Advocacy Season for NIH Funding Officially Begins

While 2022 is only a few months old, on Capitol Hill the appropriations cycle for fiscal year (FY) 2023 is well and truly underway and the Endocrine Society has quickly shifted gears and developed our 2023 funding requests for the NIH and other critical public health agencies.

In March, the Biden Administration kicked off the process by releasing its annual budget request to Congress. While the request is independent of Congressional appropriations committees that make the final funding decisions and stands little chance of becoming law as written, it gives important indications of the administration’s priorities for the coming year. This year, the budget proposed to deliver approximately $49 billion of discretionary funds to the NIH in FY23, which would be very close to the Endocrine Society’s recommendation of $50 billion in funding.

The Endocrine Society is concerned that the allocation of significant amounts of funding within the NIH budget to targeted projects may compromise the trajectory of steady, sustainable increases in funding for investigator-initiated research across the NIH that we and others have worked hard to achieve in recent years.

However, the administration request includes $1.09 billion for specific initiatives associated with the 21^st Century Cures Act and $5 billion for the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). After accounting for the ARPA-H funding within the total NIH budget, the rest of the Institutes and Centers (ICs) at the NIH would be essentially flat funded for the entire year, with some institutes potentially receiving a cut, if this proposal were accepted.

The Endocrine Society is concerned that the allocation of significant amounts of funding within the NIH budget to targeted projects may compromise the trajectory of steady, sustainable increases in funding for investigator-initiated research across the NIH that we and others have worked hard to achieve in recent years. To ensure that all ICs at the NIH continue to see funding increases that positively impact the pay line for grants, the Endocrine Society’s key request for the upcoming year will remain that the NIH should receive a $50 billion appropriation in FY 23, independent of any funds for ARPA-H, with at least a 7.7% increase in funding for each of the ICs. This ask was submitted as part of our annual appropriations testimony to the House and Senate Labor, Health, and Human Services (LHHS) Subcommittee and discussed during our meetings with Congressional offices during our April Hill Day.

As always, we encourage members to contact their elected representatives via our advocacy website to ensure that the Congress appreciates the value of investigator-initiated research and secures necessary across-the-board increases for the NIH.