RESEARCHERS AT some of the leading medical colleges and scientific institutions in India are staring at uncertain times for their projects following a recent decision by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US that affects research grants to foreign entities.
In a public notice on May 1, the NIH announced that it would not issue awards to domestic or foreign entities (new, renewal or non-competing continuation), that include a subaward to a foreign entity.
A majority of the NIH’s is awarded to universities, medical schools and other research institutions across the US and rest of the world.
In many cases, the primary recipients issue subawards to other entities to carry out specific project activities.
Many researchers in India are feeling the impact of the NIH decision. Dr Vikram Patel, professor at Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, told that most Indian research which is funded by NIH occurs through subawards from a partner in a US-based institution.
“This move of freezing new subawards will impact these and future international collaborations,” Dr Patel said.
“Furthermore, all NIH grants to Harvard have been terminated which has affected two of my projects being conducted with partners in India such as Sangath, AIIMS () and NIMHANS,” he said. Patel is also a co-founder at Sangath, an NGO that works in the field of mental health. He said these critically important research studies are at risk of premature termination.
A statement from NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, published on the NIH website, said, “There is a temporary pause for foreign subawards.”
He said NIH will finalise the implementation of the new award structure no later than September 30 and till the time they transition to the new system, NIH will no longer allow new subawards to foreign institutions. “As the complexity of science increases, this structure has grown increasingly difficult to track. These issues highlighted in a recent Government Account-ability Office report, can lead to a breakdown in trust and potentially the security of the US biomedical research enterprise,” he said.
However several scientists and researchers in India, on the condition of anonymity, told The Indian Express that despite the budgetary constraints and issues, the manner in which grants have been frozen was not appropriate.
“Several institutes have NIH-funded foreign grants and any reduction usually occurs through a phased weaning process, not a sudden cutoff,” a scientist said.
Anant Bhan, who works as site principal investigator at the Bhopal hub of Sangath and is the immediate past president of the International Association of Bioethics, said this kind of uncertainty affects the morale of the researchers with the project. An ambitious study OptimizeD has been jointly undertaken by Harvard Medical School, AIIMS, Bhopal and the Sangath team.
“The aim is to improve depression treatment outcomes in primary care in India. We have already recruited 900 of the targeted 1,500 patients. The main goal is to develop precision treatment rules using baseline data to predict in advance which individuals will benefit most from each treatment option,” Bhan said. “Harvard Medical School gets the main grant and we get subawards for the study. The Harvard team has indicated to us that NIH has sent termination notices for all federally funded awards,” he said.
Rutuja Patil, a senior scientist at KEM Hospital Research Centre’s Vadu Rural Health Programme, said the NIH move was extremely distressing for an important project. The University of California, San Francisco, has funded a research project that looks at a greater understanding of temporary childbirth migration.
“Many South Asian women return to their natal homes in different communities during pregnancy, for childbirth or postpartum. Both temporary and permanent migration may impact maternal and child health outcomes… While this is a common practice in India, it is understudied,” Patil said.
“This migration could impact women’s access or continuum of care, with negative consequences for newborn and maternal health. On the other hand, women who return to their natal homes may get more support (nutrition, social/emotional support, etc.) and have better outcomes. Hence it is important to understand if and how this phenomenon is contributing to persistent poor newborn and maternal health in India,” she said.
“The study has completed two years and overall the aim was to recruit 4,000 participants… With this uncertainty there is no clarity on further recruitments,” Patil said.
