Reduction in federal funds would minimally affect Tufts

According to government insiders, earmarked funds of any sort from the government for universities are likely to go the way of the dodo in light of the recent economic recession, reported The Chronicle of Higher Education last month.

If Congress cancels its direct funding to Tufts, the University would be negatively affected _ but not by much, since earmarked funding makes up only a very small portion of Tufts' money for research.

The University receives roughly $100 million each year from outside sources to conduct research. Since 1992, earmarked funds have made up between one and 3.5 percent of the total money spent on research and the construction of research facilities at Tufts each year.

The controversy surrounding earmarked funds is that they can be given to whomever the government deems fit _ without any of the careful consideration and peer review that goes into grants given by government research agencies. Many schools that receive government funding, especially for research, have connections to a senator or congressman, according to the Chronicle.

There is no peer-review process in the earmarked funding process, and many worry that it could lead to inferior research. But Tufts administrators disagree with that assessment. "Just because a project does not go through the peer-review process, does not mean that the research can't be of superior quality," Associate Provost for Research Peggy Newell said.

The vast majority of earmarked funds coming to Tufts are for construction, according to Newell. These funds have helped pay for the construction of the Jaharis Family Center, home to the Tufts School of Medicine, Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, and Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.

If these funds are reduced, there may be some belt tightening in the research budget, Newell said. "It may be somewhat harder in the future to find funds for construction if earmarked funds are cancelled."

If earmarked funding is not cut, there is still the issue of whether such funding will overtake peer-reviewed research as the standard for university research across the country.

The peer review process is important and must continue to be the standard for research into the future, Newell said. But she did say that there was no truly superior method. "There is probably room for both peer reviewed research and research supported by earmarked funding," she said.

Tufts began an intensive relationship with the federal government when Former University President Jean Mayer secured in 1992 a government grant to build a new facility to hold the graduate schools. This grant has given Tufts funds totaling about $8 million in smaller increments each year since.

Mayer was among the first university presidents to appeal to the government directly for funding. The funding for the Jaharis Center was the most important of many grants that the school acquired from the government during Mayer's time as president. These funds have been critical in Tufts development as a respected research university within the research community.

The remaining 98 percent of the University's research funds come from research corporations and foundations _ which make up about seven percent of the $100 million figure _ and from grants from national science agencies that carefully select different universities to receive the funding.

Under normal circumstances, when a grant is given by government agencies, like the National Institute of Health or the National Science Foundation, each university that wants research funds must write a proposal to be reviewed by experts in the appropriate field of study.

One of the few exceptions is the research on the genetics of shrimp conducted by Dr. Acacia Alcivar-Warren, which does not go through the peer-review process. The goal of this project is to help the US learn effective shrimp farming because of recent supply problems. This grant was earmarked for use by Tufts, four other universities, and two non-profit research groups since 1999 by the US Marine Shrimp Farming Program.

The practice of the government funding individual universities is a controversial one and many government officials _ including President George W. Bush _ have wanted to eliminate the government's direct funding of universities altogether.

Yet funding increased again in the fiscal year 2002, despite the president's pledge that so-called 'pork barreling' of government funds into private or state-run institutions would stop. In fact, earmarked spending for universities has increased five-fold since 1996 to $1.837 billion.

The issue many proponents of government earmarking have with peer-reviewed research is that the boards of experts are often filled with researchers from distinguished universities, and the tendency can be to give any new research to the more distinguished universities because of their superior track record and greater influence. This can leave many deserving but less prestigious universities struggling to earn grants.