The NIH stops financing research projects with foreign employees

Megan Molteni reports the discoveries of the borders of genomic medicine, neuroscience and reproductive technology. She joined Stat in 2021 after covering health and science in Wired. You can reach Megan on the signal at Mmolteni.13.

The National Institutes of Health announced on Thursday that it would no longer allow subtelassins to foreign institutions, as part of a national security overhaul on how the agency manages its 47 billion dollars research portfolio. Change is likely to cause immediate disturbances to research projects worldwide.

“Subtrahisons” are NIH funds that a subsidy beneficiary can give another organization to carry out a specific element of the project. It is an increasingly common practice for scientists to issue sub-comments to employees in other countries, especially since biomedical research has become both more interdisciplinary and more global.

According to the new directives, the NIH intends to create a new subsidy structure which will eliminate subcontracting, by replacing them with linked awards which, according to the agency, will allow it to follow the funds by more transparency. The NIH plans to implement the new system no later than September 30.