Grants Management : Approaches and Insights from Other Countries' Reform Efforts (GAO-25-106920) Similar to the United States, other governments use competitive grants-which require potential grantees to compete for funding through an application process-to help achieve their policy priorities. Selected governments reported that they have undertaken government-wide reforms to help address challenges to grants management….Officials from the selected governments shared insights on factors that helped facilitate or hinder their implementation of grants management reforms. Based on these insights, GAO identified seven practices that may help facilitate grants management reforms. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-106920
Jay Bhattacharya, an NIH critic, emerges as a top candidate to lead the agency (Washington Post) The rise of Bhattacharya - from being scorned by the nation's NIH director to possibly occupying his office four years later - reflects how the backlash to coronavirus policies has helped reshape conservative politics and elevate new voices. While Collins and other public health experts maintain that the Great Barrington Declaration's ideas were rash and would have put vulnerable people at risk, many Americans have come to believe that school shutdowns and other pandemic-related policies lasted too long. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/11/16/nih-director-jay-bhattacharya-covid-great-barrington-declaration/
Federal Judge Strikes Down Biden's Overtime Expansion (Inside Higher Ed) The decision, released Friday, comes nearly six weeks before the second phase of the rule was set to take effect. In that phase, employees making less than $58,656 a year would be eligible for overtime pay. The current cutoff, which took effect in July under the first phase of the policy, is $43,888. But in his ruling, District Judge Sean D. Jordan tossed the entire rule, resetting the overtime threshold to $35,568. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/2024/11/18/federal-judge-strikes-down-biden-overtime-expansion
Major biomedical funder NIH poised for massive reform under Trump 2.0 (Nature) Proposals from both chambers of the US Congress, as well as comments made by the incoming administration of US president-elect Donald Trump show that there is significant appetite to reform the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its US$47-billion research portfolio. What's less clear is how this transformation will unfold; proposals have included everything from shrinking the number of institutes by half to replacing a subset of the agency's staff members… McMorris Rodgers's plan would collapse the number of institutes and centres at the NIH from 27 to 15, allow its parent agency to cancel any grant determined to be a threat to national security, impose a 5-year term limit on institute directors that can be renewed only once and enact stricter oversight of research involving risky pathogens. For his part, Cassidy, who is set to become the chair of the US Senate's committee charged with overseeing health issues in 2025, said that he would introduce more transparency into processes that the agency uses to review research grant proposals. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03736-0
NIH advisers react to GOP plans (Politico) https://www.politico.com/newsletters/future-pulse/2024/11/14/nih-advisers-react-to-gop-plans-00189528
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Appointment Would 'Put Americans at Risk' (Inside Higher Ed) Trump's pick for health and human services secretary aims to disrupt the National Institutes of Health, the country's top funder of academic research. Doctors and public health officials have condemned the choice. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2024/11/15/what-robert-f-kennedy-jr-has-said-about-nih
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Gloria W. Greene, CRA, MA
SRAI Immediate Past-President 2024-26
SRAI Distinguished Faculty
The University of Alabama in Huntsville
Assistant Vice President, Contracts and Grants and Research Compliance
Office of The Vice President for Research and Economic Development
Huntsville, A:L 35899
256-824-2657
greeneg@uah.edu------------------------------