The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) would see its budget rise by US$1.1 billion in 2018, to $35.2 billion, under a spending proposal released on 12 July by lawmakers in the House of Representatives.
The legislation explicitly rejects a plan by the administration of President Donald Trump to cut the NIH’s budget by 18% in 2018. The president’s proposal would achieve that largely by reducing how much the agency pays to reimburse its grant recipients’ institutions for “indirect costs” — expenses such as administration and facilities maintenance. Instead, the House bill includes a provision that directs the NIH to compensate institutions for those expenses, although the materials released today do not include full details of the requirements.
