Promising early-career National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists who were fired last month as part of President Donald Trump’s purge of probationary employees learned yesterday that they have their jobs back. But the good news is tempered by looming federal job cuts that could shave thousands of staff at NIH.
Those restored include 15 tenure-track investigators—scientists who joined NIH’s in-house research program within the past couple of years with the expectation of earning a permanent lab at the agency. Acting NIH Director Matthew Memoli had appealed to his bosses at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to restore that group after NIH was ordered to fire nearly 1200 probationary employees who were relatively new in their positions or recently promoted.
Other staff scientists, lab technicians, and administrative personnel whose firings Memoli appealed were also rehired, according to two NIH sources. A total of 250 employees will keep their positions, an NIH source with knowledge of the matter told Science. (Unlike at some other federal agencies, no court orders have been issued to force HHS to reverse these firings.)
One fired tenure-track investigator told Science they had been shut out of work email and their lab since 15 February and had to leave in-limbo trainees and animal experiments until their recall yesterday. “I am relieved, but also it’s tough to feel only relief when there is still so much uncertainty about the future here,” the scientist says.
NIH staff remain under a travel ban and purchasing freeze, which means they can’t attend scientific meetings as federal representatives, and some of the agency’s scientists are scrounging from other NIH labs for reagents and other materials, as Wired has reported. More ominous, NIH was due today to send the White House lists of employees who could be let go as part of a governmentwide reduction in force (RIF).
According to press accounts, social media, and sources at NIH who heard about the agency’s RIF plan at meetings, the agency may shed between 3400 and 5000 positions from its current 20,000 full-time equivalent positions. But that target may already be partially achieved if the agency can count people who have departed already or will soon. They include fired probationary employees who haven’t been reinstated, employees who are leaving this year through normal retirements or incentives such as Elon Musk’s Fork in the Road offer, and those departing because of Trump’s return-to-the-office policy
More: https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-reinstates-some-its-early-career-scientists
