SC scientists compete for additional stimulus money

For South Carolina, more stimulus money could be on the way- thanks to science.
The Obama Administration has set aside nearly $10.4 billion for the National Institutes of Health, and other scientific institutes to support medical research, and $3 billion to the National Science Foundation in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
“A number of scientific priorities have popped up over the last few years at NIH and there hasn’t been money to fund them, and now, some of these monies are given the opportunities to fund some of those priorities. And they’re going, targeting individual investigators to distribute those monies,” says Lanier.
As Doctor Steven Lanier, Associate Provost for Research at the Medical University of South Carolina, explains, these grants are competitive at the national level and will be distributed to approved applicants this year.
“This idea is to not only invest in science and technology, but the idea is to do that quickly and target these monies to be extended in the next two years so we have economic benefits across the board, new hires, retention, all the renovations would be mini-stimulus packages in themselves,” says Lanier.
Lanier says there’s a rush for scientists and researchers to fill out these stimulus applications because the deadline is the end of May. He says it’s fair game for institutions and individuals across the nation to get their portion.
“It depends on the type of application, they will get reviewed and then they will be viewed based on merit and need and then depending on how much money is available a certain percentage of them will be paid. A majority of them will be available summer and awards begin to be made August,” says Lanier.
Lanier says the money will be divided into several different categories; including renovations, instrumentations, research, and scientific priorities. Each application will be reviewed.