Faculty in the Chronic Brain Injury program pose for a photo. The Chronic Brain Injury Program at Ohio State may face funding changes after the NIH cut indirect funding to 15 percent. Credit: Kedar Hiremath, associate director of the Chronic Brain Injury Program at Ohio State
Despite a 10% increase in grants and awards during the last fiscal year, the Chronic Brain Injury program at Ohio State may struggle to fund its research in light of the National Institutes of Health cutting indirect costs.
Following the NIH’s decision to cap indirect funds to 15% for medical research, CBI is unable to receive over half the amount it previously earned, said Kedar Hiremath, the program’s associate director. Despite this change, he said the program plans to continue supporting its projects, faculty and students by focusing more on internal funding.
“Even though things are changing at the government, NIH level, we are going to stay the course,” Hiremath said.
Prior to the NIH announcement, Ohio State received 57.5% of its indirect funding from the NIH each year, which helped pay staff and maintain the facility, according to the university’s webpage. The rates had previously been determined on an individual basis, per prior Lantern reporting.
The awards the program receives help fund a variety of projects, such as researching physical responses to stress, providing care for homeless people with brain injuries and better understanding brain injuries from domestic violence, Lundine said.
“This isn’t a health issue — it’s a life issue,” Hiremath said.
The CBI program not only helps fund its research but also assists scientists in receiving grants, Hiremath said. Once CBI begins its research with more internal grants, it can increase its funding externally, he said.
Previously, CBI had generally received 12 times more external money in comparison to what the program invests internally, Jonathan Godbout, a neuroscience professor and CBI’s faculty director, said.
The NIH’s 15% cap will have a significant effect on research and professionals’ ability to stay at the university, Godbout said.
“We’re going to lose a lot of talented graduate students, a lot of talented postdocs,” Godbout said. “A lot of talented professors are going to leave because their opportunities are not going to be there. We’re not going to be able to pay for them.”
Jennifer Lundine, an associate professor of speech and hearing sciences and faculty member of the CBI program, said the funding cuts will be devastating for the university’s research community.
“These have tremendous impacts on the work we do,” Lundine said. “But also the long-term effects on helping people live independently and have better outcomes with all of these diagnoses.”
This past year, Godbout and his team received the program’s largest award from the U.S. Department of Defense, according to CBI’s Annual Report.
Until 2027, Godbout said his team will receive a total of $7.7 million from the Department of Defense. The grant began September 2023 and provides an annual budget of $1.9 million for the next four years to research brain injuries specific to the military, Godbout said.
March 20, the Department of Defense announced it would be cutting $580 million in spending, including $360 million in grants, according to a press release.
Godbout and his team will continue to receive their grant money as planned, but he said if they had applied for the award this year, they would not have received as much — if anything at all.
“I think it’s going to be a lot harder to get external grants with cuts in the NIH and the DoD, especially from the brain injury side,” Godbout said.
Lundine said CBI could even be discontinued if the university loses more funding, as it does not generate the highest amount of revenue compared to other departments.
“It would be really devastating to science, to students, to teaching, to the community and the work that we all do,” Lundine said.
Through steadily building community support, however, CBI has been able to keep funding projects even when unexpected challenges arise, Hiremath said.
“We’re making sure that those new ideas keep getting off the ground and don’t get stifled by some uncertainty or change,” Hiremath said. “We’re able to kind of get over those hurdles and keep new research pump through.”
Godbout said the funding reduction emphasizes the need for internal awards.
“That makes our role even more important, to continue to have internal grants support the researchers who are in [the CBI] space,” Godbout said.
