In a statement published yesterday, David A. Brenner, MD, president and CEO of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute announced his full support and backing of the Financial Accountability in Research (FAIR) proposal, under consideration by Congress.
The FAIR proposal is intended to remedy the current crisis in research funding, initiated earlier this year by the Trump administration’s announced intention to universally cap federal research funding of indirect costs (IDC) at 15 percent. IDC are the basic expenses borne by institutions to maintain operations, such as maintaining the laboratories, administering payrolls, purchasing specialized instruments, providing data cybersecurity and ensuring the safety of human participants.
The FAIR proposal is the result of months of work by a coalition of higher education and research organizations nationwide, from large research universities and academic medical centers to private foundations and non-profit research organizations like Sanford Burnham Prebys.
Kurt Marek, PhD
Chief Research Development Officer at Sanford Burnham Prebys.
“The process has been intense and galvanizing,” said Kurt Marek, PhD, chief research development officer at Sanford Burnham Prebys and one of the leaders in the FAIR effort. “More than 10,000 people have participated in national town halls and webinars. Hundreds of written comments have been submitted. Nearly 200 institutions have tested and tweaked the model.”
The result, said Brenner, is a new system for funding U.S. research, one with unprecedented emphasis on transparency, accountability and flexibility. The model is based upon three principal elements:
David A. Brenner MD
President and Chief Executive Officer, Donald Bren Chief Executive Chair
- It replaces outdated and vague terms like indirect costs in favor of specific details about actual costs necessary to perform a research project. These defined costs are visible to everyone, from government officials to taxpayers. The approach promotes best practices and efficiencies, in particular aligning institutional investments with government research priorities.
- It incorporates systems already effectively used in industry and private enterprise to clearly track costing categories — and make explicit how monies are spent. This ensures research performance support is tailored and tied to specific projects.
- It is adaptable to institutional size and type, from large universities to smaller non-profit research institutions. It has tiers of reporting and infrastructure designed to match the resources of different institutions.
“The government has always been a key and critical supporter of American science,” said Brenner. “It is a principal reason this nation leads in terms of new cures, biomedical technologies and lives saved. The FAIR model ensures that our history of success becomes a future of achievement.”
Read more at Research in Crisis.