President Barack Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget request released today signifies the importance of investment in scientific research—research that has been responsible for our greatest technological and medical breakthroughs. The budget request would provide strong support for the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, as well as basic research at the Department of Defense.
While the National Institutes of Health avoids damaging cuts, additional funds will be needed to address the biomedical concerns that face our society today. Tulane University received more than $70 million last year in NIH funding; funding that has provided the nation with critical medical research.
“Our researchers are working globally and locally, developing vaccines for some of the world’s deadliest diseases and protecting our city’s children from lead poisoning after Katrina,” said Tulane President Scott Cowen.
NIH funding has also been key to the success of the Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium (LCRC) and the recently opened New Orleans Bioinnovation Center (NOBIC), each vital to the city’s economic future. Cowen added, “The successes we’ve had at Tulane and in New Orleans commercializing university research and creating high-paying jobs is due in large part to increasing NIH funding. Without the necessary funding it will be more difficult to establish and grow our knowledge-based economy.”
Sustaining strong federal support of research is not only vital to Tulane’s mission as a university, but to its broader commitment to serve the community as educators, innovators, doctors, and entrepreneurs.