Research Funding, Social Responsibilities, and Nursing Knowledge Generation

With all the news on recent political changes including the drastic upcoming changes in the National Institute of Health (NIH),1-3 I was thinking of the impact of research funding on nursing knowledge generation. Indeed, research grants have been essential for nurse scientists and scholars to survive in the academia because they have great impacts on their promotion and tenure process.4 Subsequently, nurse scientists and scholars have tried to ensure grant funding for their research programs and scholarly works, which consequently influence the directions of nursing knowledge generation. Whenever there were changes in the funding priorities and funding amounts by funding agencies, especially by the National Institute of Health (NIH) including the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), nursing faculty members’ research programs have been greatly impacted.5 With the previous funding priorities on symptom science, palliative care, and symptom management by NINR, a number of nurse researchers have chosen these areas for their research and have developed their research programs accordingly. With an emphasis on genetics, genomics and omics, many senior and junior nursing researchers jumped into the areas and participated in the necessary workshops and training sessions and incorporated them into their research programs. With the relatively recent changes in the NINR funding priorities,6 many nursing researchers have minor or major changes in their directions of research programs. Some have totally changed their research directions to fit with the new NINR funding priorities (eg, social determinants of health, health disparity) although their research focus was not previously on the areas. Others have added the specific new areas of priorities in their research programs or detoured their target NIH institution to other institutes with the fundings priorities that fit with their research programs. With the recent and upcoming drastic changes in the NIH due to the new federal and/or state governmental changes,7-9 nursing researchers may need to go through another round of drastic changes not only in their research programs, but even in their career directions. Indeed, the recent history shows that the funding amounts of funding agencies could greatly influence nurse scientists’ research programs, subsequently impacting nursing knowledge generation.5 According to Kiely and Wysocki,5 NINR funding amount to nursing schools was the highest in 2005 and has declined since. They claimed that, considering the current number of doctoral programs in nursing, the funding from NINR is inadequate. Maybe, that is why we began to see the trend of difficulties in getting funding among junior nurse scientists and subsequent lowering the bar in promotions in the academia in recent years. Changes in funding priorities and funding amount by funding agencies including NIH could be partially due to political contextual factors as we currently experience. Yet, in most cases, the changes are frequently caused by the necessity of research in the specific areas, populations, or methods by the current health/illness situations (eg, COVID19). Research programs are mainly based on researchers’ interests; however, researchers, especially health researchers, have social responsibilities.10 When the COVID19 happened, researchers jumped into the topics that they never investigated.11 Then, they developed the vaccine and treatment methods for the COVID19. When health disparities were prominent in the mortality rates due to the COVID19, researchers immediately began their studies to investigate health disparities during the COVID19. Considering that NIH funding priorities are based on the nation’s healthcare needs, researchers who change their research programs to fit with the priorities need to be viewed as a necessity despite the criticism on coherency and consistency in researchers’ research programs. With the current and upcoming changes across the nation, nursing researchers may need to go through another round of big changes in their research directions that they have never expected in recent years. In this shifting landscape, one thing clear is that nursing researchers need to maintain their social responsibilities, which would be essential for nursing discipline as a whole and specifically for nursing knowledge generation. The roles of sociopolitical knowing12 would be very important during the process. The impact of the changes in funding priorities and amount and subsequent changes in research programs on nursing knowledge generation may be greater than we think. Scholarly works in the areas with high funding priorities may drastically increase, which will definitely impact nursing knowledge generation. Indeed, we have been seeing an increasing number of papers on health disparities and social determinants of health in relatively recent years. Then, how about the areas where the priorities have been lifted? Will we see drastic decreases in the papers on the areas? Does that mean that we do not need nursing knowledge in the areas? How can we develop support systems that enable nursing scholarship that focuses on our social responsibilities that are underfunded or not funded? There are lots of questions to ask under the current political situations that may greatly impact nursing knowledge generation. Where is our discipline heading to? I want to conclude this editorial with the famous saying by a British retired actor, Sir Michale Caine, “…the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing.” —Eun-Ok Im, PhD, MPH, RN, CNS, FAAN Editor