Federal Year 2011 began on October 1, 2010. But the federal government has yet to appropriate a budget for FY11 and will be on a Continuing Resolution through at least March 3, 2011. Has a CR ever extended five months into the year? Not in my memory.
Grantwriters and grantees alike await news of the appropriation to NIH, which in FY10 was $31.3 billion, about 85% of which is distributed as extramural grants. (fyi, the Administration this week requested a $1B increase in the NIH budget for FY12, up 3.3% over last year’s appropriation. But don’t get too excited—given a 3.5% rate of inflation, that amount would represent level funding. And let’s face it, that funding recommendation will never clear the House anyway.)
Institutes are attempting to guesstimate paylines for FY11, despite the extremely tardy appropriation. I began tracking down this information on the labyrinthine NIH website, then discovered a wonderful blog post that has assembled available FY11 paylines for us. So pour yourself a stiff drink, click on this extremely helpful blog post (and peruse the other posts/links), and try to remind yourself that if you don’t apply, your chance of funding is zero.
