SfN Commends House Appropriations Agreement to Increase NIH Funding in FY 20
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) commends the $41.1 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the FY 20 House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) appropriations bill, a $2 billion increase over FY 19. The Society urges swift passage of the bill to continue a five-year trend of robust, predictable, and stable increases to NIH’s budget.
The funding increase includes $411 million for the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, $2.4 billion for Alzheimer’s disease research, and a nearly 5 percent increase to the budgets of all NIH Institutes and Centers. These increases directly support SfN members’ work to understand the mysteries of the brain and nervous system, with the ultimate goal of informing future treatments for the more than 1,000 brain and spinal cord diseases that directly affect more than 100 million Americans each year.
The consistent increases to the NIH budget over the past five years speaks to the bipartisan nature of scientific research. SfN is grateful to LHHS Subcommittee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Ranking Member Tom Cole (R-OK) for their leadership consistently prioritizing NIH in the face of fiscal constraints. SfN understands further efforts will be needed to raise the impending budget caps, and we look forward to working with policymakers to complete the appropriations process in a timely manner to provide strong support for NIH and biomedical research.
The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is an organization of more than 37,000 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and the nervous system.
