Two organizations, United for Medical Research and The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, recently released a report entitled "Healthy Funding Ensuring a Predictable and Growing Budget for the National Institutes of Health." It outlined options such as multiyear budgeting, advance allocations, mandatory programs, and dedicated funding streams. In general, the report argued that federal research dollars would be disbursed more reliably and possibly more generously if they were no longer considered “discretionary.” Similarly, this past week, scientists at a meeting of the American Physical Society floated the idea of a National Research Bank, a public-private partnership that would manage an endowment free of the usual budgetary and political wrangling.

Poll Question:
Are proposals to circumvent the usual mechanisms of federal funding realistic?

No
34

Yes
21

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