The Committee on Scientific Planning and Review (CSPR) met on 8-9 June to decide on the awards for the ICSU Grants Programme for 2005. On behalf of CSPR I am pleased to inform you that IUPHAR’s proposal entitled ‘Consolidation and annotation of knowledge concerning receptors and sites for drug action in the human genome’ has been awarded $100,000. A summary note on the evaluation of your proposals by the lead reviewer is attached (Annex 1). The final decisions on proposed grants were taken by the entire Committee after careful evaluation of the review comments. The final table of is attached. (Annex 2)
The awarded grant is entirely funded from a financial contribution from UNESCO to ICSU. You are asked to clearly acknowledge UNESCO in carrying out the activity. In receiving the award, IUPHAR is expected to submit a narrative scientific report as well as detailed financial statement to ICSU no later than 30 March 2006. Please use the attached reporting form (Annex 3) and ensure to list all items and corresponding costs under relevant headings, failing which UNESCO will not accept the report. Funds are to be expended by December 2005. Any unspent money must be returned to ICSU unless a request for an extension, including justification, is approved by ICSU. Requests for extensions have to be received by 30 September 2004 and will be granted only if the justification is compelling.
For information, ICSU received 40 applications requesting a total of US $2,656,658 and the budget in the grants programme for 2005 is US $350,000. The budget has been substantially reduced for two main reasons: the decision of the USA to re-join UNESCO which has resulted in a withdrawal of the direct subvention to ICSU from the US Statement Department; and secondly, the dramatic weakening of the US dollar versus the Euro.
The combination of these two factors, at a time when ICSU is expanding its activities and undergoing an intensive strategy development process, has had a dramatic effect on ICSU’s budgeting for 2005 and 2006. The reduction in the grants programme is a direct consequence of this. Whilst, we hope that this is a temporary phenomenon the immediate outlook for 2006 is also not very promising. In the longer-term however, the ICSU Officers have confirmed the commitment to maintaining the grants programme as a key part of ICSU’s overall strategy. This will entail discussion with other funding bodies.
I should add that, it is only thanks to the generous contribution of UNESCO that a small number of ‘A’ graded grants will be guaranteed funding in 2005. In order to allocate this funding, CSPR ranked all of the ‘A’ graded proposals on the basis on their scientific merit and strategic importance. This was a difficult process that was taken very seriously by the committee.
