Congressman Bill Huizenga has introduced legislation seeking to increase transparency at the National Institutes of Health.
Huizenga tells us the Grant Reform and NIH Transparency Act would require the creation of a mechanism to share NIH’s internal grant-making information with independent, outside researchers.
“83% of NIH’s budget, which is about $48 billion a year, goes to fund research through their grant program, but it’s very much a black box,” Huizenga said. “People who get denied those grants don’t get feedback and don’t understand why that grant was denied. They’re not told, they’re not compelled to be told why. There’s no outside validation or no outside reviews of those.”
Huizenga says requiring the NIH to explain its decisions will hold its managers more accountable and give the public insight while making the grant process more competitive and efficient.
Huizenga adds under the current process, the NIH once provided funding for the EcoHealth Alliance to partner with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China to study bat coronaviruses.
