A large portion of grants awarded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) cannot be funded for the foreseeable future because of a hold on submissions to the Federal Register, where such public notices about upcoming meetings are required by law to be posted, according to an email reviewed by The Transmitter.
“FRN [Federal Register Notice] submissions are now on hold indefinitely” reads the email, which was sent on 7 February from an NIH official to a researcher who shared it with The Transmitter. The decision, the email continues, “came from the HHS [Health and Human Services] level and no further information was provided.”
Study sections, which convene groups of reviewers to assess grant proposals, and advisory councils, which provide guidance on funding decisions, must post meeting plans in the Federal Register 15 days ahead of their scheduled date, according to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which was passed in 1972.
Without being able to hold those meetings, new grants cannot be awarded, says Carole LaBonne, professor of molecular biosciences at Northwestern University. That serves as an “end run” around the court ruling that hit pause on a funding freeze initiated by the Trump administration, she says. “By preventing publishing on the register, they were able to prevent any new funding.”
No new NIH-related notices have been posted in the Federal Register since 21 January, following a communications freeze from the Trump administration that was scheduled through 1 February. That freeze partially eased earlier this month, Science reported on 4 February: NIH staff could once again submit documents to the Federal Register, and the agency resumed meetings of advisory councils and study sections. The 7 February memo suggests the pause on Federal Register postings continues indefinitely. Meetings that had already been published in the register are allowed to proceed, but new meetings that had not yet been published will need to be postponed or canceled, the email states.
The next year of funding for an already-approved grant does not require the meeting of an advisory council. New grants, and even grant renewals, on the other hand, cannot move forward without these meetings.
Principal investigators on five-year grants looking to extend their funding, for example, typically submit a renewal application request for more funding in the fourth year of their grant. “That may be what is not going forward for review or for council,” LaBonne says. “So if you’re that principal investigator, you’re going to have to start seriously thinking about laying off staff, because you won’t have the funds to pay them.”
