Contact Your Senators and Representatives to Support COVID-19 Relief Research Funding

The vast majority of research labs across the country were forced to suspend their research or pivot to COVID-19 related work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To help remedy this, Representatives Diana DeGette (D-CO), Fred Upton (R-MI), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Frank Lucas (R-OK), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) have introduced bipartisan legislation to authorize funding to U.S. researchers who have been impacted by the pandemic. Companion legislation has been introduced in the Senate by Senators Edward Markey (D-MA), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Gary Peters (D-MI) and Cory Gardner (R-CO).

The Research Investment to Secure the Economy (RISE) Act (H.R. 7308/S. 4286) authorizes approximately $26 billion in emergency relief for federal science agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to award to research universities, independent institutions, and national laboratories to continue working on federally-funded research projects. This funding could, among other things, enable graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, and Principal Investigators to complete work that was disrupted by COVID-19, or extend the training or employment of researchers on an existing research project for up to two years because of the disruption of the job market.