On Saturday, March 23, President Biden signed a spending package that included the second set of appropriations for Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24). Congress negotiated for the past six months to finalize FY24 allocations in a particularly inefficient and complicated process that included four continuing resolutions (CRs) and multiple threats of government shutdowns.
[Click here for our updated FABBS Federal Science Funding Dashboard]
The Labor, Health and Human Services, Education (Labor-H) appropriations agencies were among the six appropriations bills in this final spending package for FY24. Labor-H includes funding for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The topline spending agreement is in line with the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act which set limits on non-defense related discretionary spending. Funding in the Labor-H package includes:
- ARPA-H: $1.5 billion — the same allocation it received in FY23
- IES: $793.1 million — a two percent decrease compared to FY23
- NIH: $47.1 billion — a one percent decrease compared to FY23
Despite largely flat funding, according to an article from the American Association of Science (AAAS), a few NIH institutes and centers will receive a raise from the FY23 enacted levels:
- The National Cancer Institute with $130 million more in FY24
- Alzheimer’s research with $100 million more in FY24
- Mental health research with $75 million more in FY24
The flat funding level for ARPA-H, NIH, and IES is disappointing for the behavioral and brain sciences. FABBS and the broader scientific community will continue to call for more money for science broadly and in our disciplines. The Coalition for Health Funding, of which FABBS is a member, issued a letter articulating the importance of increases to NIH’s budget. The letter points out that flat funding, without taking into account inflation and cost of living adjustments, is essentially a cut.
National Science Foundation FY24 Report Language
In our most recent newsletter budget update, we reported about the allocation for NSF. There are two important developments for our disciplines in the report language:
- NSF is encouraged “to equitably distribute funding to support all basic research directorates within R&RA, as well as the Technology, Innovation and Partnerships Directorate (TIP).” This means that NSF will not disproportionately reduce budgets from the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) to support TIP.
- “The agreement directs the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)” to produce a report analyzing the impact of their Open Science Memoranda on “federal research investments, research integrity, and the peer review process.” If OSTP does not send another report to Congress within 100 days, then they will have to pause implementation until they send one.
In advocating for more robust funding, FABBS has signed on to multiple letters calling for increased funding for FY25. Please click here to see the letters that FABBS has signed onto.
