Wonderful news for all of us at Krasnow. Kudos to Professor Ascoli and
his team!

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Giorgio
>
>
> Just got an email that the NIDA contract for the Neuroscience
> Infrastructure was officially awarded this morning to the
> SfN-sponsored consortium formed by Cornell/Yale/GMU/UCSD
> SuperComputing Center !
>
> As you know, our role is to provide a centralized inventory of
> neuromorphological reconstructions. As many as three elected SfN
> presidents (Bernice Grefstein, Huda Akil, and David van Essen) have
> already expressed their personal support and congratulations. We can
> expect a fair amount of pressure, visibility, and responsibility on
> our shoulders — this is a tremendous opportunity to claim a central
> spot on the fututre cyber-map of neuroscience. Let’s show them all
> what we are capable of!
>
> Giorgio

I received an update on the Krasnow Expansion Project this morning from
Ken DeJong. Things are moving along now quite well. Decisions have been
reached, however I’m going to have to defer on making those public. If
you chat with Ken (Krasnow’s Associate Director) you’ll learn the
latest.

On the new journal: Cognitive Neurodyanamics: it’s clear to me that
this new Springer publication may be an ideal venue for some of
Krasnow’s science. The new journal will get underway officially in
January, however if you have an idea for a manuscript, please don’t
hesitate to contact me right away.

Finally: I’ll be back for the long haul a week from today. I’m
extremely grateful to the support staff in both places (Krasnow and
MBL) for making Woods Hole possible this summer (and now Fall) and I
apologize to those who have been inconvenienced by my absence.
Hopefully some good things will have come out of it though.

Jim

So I’m up in Woods Hole this week to make some quite major decisions regarding my Journal, The Biological Bulletin. We’re in the process of chosing an on-line editorial management system, hiring a business consultant and looking at the copyright transfer issue as far as authors are considered. All of this because, as you are probably aware, the entire scientific journal business is in major flux. Business models are changing, author expectations are changing and even one hundred year old journals, like ours, have to adapt or go the way of the Do Do bird (to use an evolutionary metaphor in defiance of intelligent design).

At the same time, I’ve been named to the editorial board of a new Springer journal, Cognitive Neurodynamics, which I think might be an exciting place to publish for some of us at Krasnow. This journal will be open for business in January and I’ll have more details about the scientific focus in the next several weeks or so.

On a personal note, my sister, Dr. Jacqueline Olds, is coming through town this afternoon on her way to her vacation house on Martha’s Vineyard. She and her husband, Richard Schwartz, are on the Harvard Medical School clinical faculty in psychiatry. I don’t know how many of you read the report in the papers the last several days about a study that supposedly shows how ineffective anti-psychotic drugs have been–it should make for interesting conversation though around our dinner table!

Happy Weekend to all,
Jim

Reading the Wall St. Journal this morning (click on the link above) I noticed a very interesting article regarding the NIH. Apparently several influential congressmembers have gotten a bee in their bonnet about the possible “mis-use” of public funds by NIH-funded PI’s. This uptick in interest reflects a pattern that I’ve seen before–a political pendulum if you will–that doesn’t serve the NIH, nor science as a whole very well. Of particular concern is the focus on graduate student tuition support because one thing is very clear: graduate students need more, not less support from the federal government.

In general when NIH becomes a political football, it is a reflection, in my opinion, of general governmental dysfunction. The agency is clearly one example of a federal agency that actually works.

My two cents,
Jim

When one first arrives in Woods Hole, an ID card is waiting for you.
It’s very similar to our ID cards and the number on it is used to
register your computer on a local website (http://register.mbl.edu).
The website then enforces an immediate reboot of your machine during
which I believe it “reads” the MAC (hardware fingerprint of the
ethernet adapter, nothing to do with Apple computers) address of your
machine. From that point onward, your machine’s MAC address is linked
internally to your MBL id card and, as long as the id card is valid,
your machine will automatically be allowed onto the local network.

Interestingly for guests: even if you don’t have an MBL id, your
computer will be allowed web-based access to the internet–so that you
can read and send email via your institution’s web-mail interface.

Pretty nice system I think!

Now, on a completely different tack:

The suggestion was made, on the basis of yesterday’s extremely
successful seminars, that we stream web-cast our future talks. I am
very open to this possibility. The notion is that this would
simultaneously build the scientific reputation of Krasnow, while at the
same time, facilitating “virtual” attendance of our talks for those who
might find themselves deterred by the beltway.

Jim

So what type of activities are supported by the Krasnow budget?

Without question, the largest share goes to salaries. These dollars include support for Krasnow administrative staff, but also a share of faculty, post-doctoral fellow and technician salaries. We also spend a significant portion of the budget on support for graduate research assistantships and together with tuition support.

Which makes us sound somewhat more like an academic unit doesn’t it?

Another significant expenditure is in the area of what I would call infrastructure support–things like phone, xerox and mail.

Of course the Monday Seminar series is also a significant expenditure!

Enjoy today’s seminar!

Jim

Krasnow is of course a research unit (as opposed to an academic unit) under the office of the Provost. As such it enjoys the budget standing of a school or college. Mason has one other such institute, but it is an academic unit which grants degrees (the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution; ICAR).

As such a unit, Krasnow receives a major component of its funding directly from the University. The Institute also receives indirect cost recovery dollars that are based on the sponsored research activities that go on within the Institute. Additionally, the Institute receives funds from private sources (either gifts or foundation grants) and these also are used to support the activities of the Institute.

However, the largest source of resource dollars for Krasnow activiies comes from investigator-initiated grants and contracts directly to Krasnow Principal Investigators. These very real dollars (which frankly support the majority of the Institute’s program) are not considered in the budget process, although they are very much considered as part of the budget aggregate value. In other words, those sponsored grants and contracts are budgeted separately by the PI’s.

Next we’ll consider the types of activities and programs supported by the Krasnow budget.

Jim

First some general points about the overall University budget:

The overall University budget is planned to coordinate with the
Commonwealth’s biennial budget process–this means budgeting two
years at a go. The budget year runs from July 1 through June 30 and
we commence planning approximately 18 months in advance of the
beginning of a budget year. The University’s annual budget is a
little over a half-billion dollars. Of these budget dollars,
approximately 1/3 comes from the Commonwealth, 1/3 derives from
tuition and the last 1/3 comes from sponsored research and various
auxiliary enterprises (such as the Patriot Center).

Now to talk a bit about Krasnow’s internal budget process. As with
the University, we begin planning about 18 months in advance of
actually spending the dollars. Ever since Krasnow merged with Mason
in April of 2002, the budget is ultimately based upon the previous
year’s budget which serves as a “base”. The planning process, which
is completely integrated with that of the University, involves using
the base as a starting point and then looking at the new activities
and programs that will need to be funded de novo under the new
budget. We also are asked to carefully evaluate the current program
with the notion of finding savings where that is possible.

What you should take home from the above information is that it is
very difficult to find funding for contingencies and opportunities as
they come up, because in general the money has been committed long in
advance. For this reason I urge Krasnow staff, when they approach me
for support of some program or activity, to consider the relatively
long time-line when making their requests.

Next up we’ll write about the various sources of the Krasnow budget
dollars.

Jim

This is an image of our delegation meeting with folks from St. Martinus Faculty of Medicine just before returning to Washington. Mason VP for Research, Matt Kluger is in the blue polo shirt.

It’s always nice to return to Krasnow after a trip, but this morning
it was particularly enjoyable knowing that the Krasnow Expansion
Project final presentations are going forward on schedule this
morning. I have a lot of confidence in our selection team and I think
we’ll get an excellent building addition, in the end.

Over the next several weeks in this space I’m going to talk a bit
about budget issues. I want to explain something about the process
and also perhaps address questions that occasionally arise concerning
what gets funded and what gets deferred. The hope is that at least
the process will become considerably more transparent (both within
Krasnow and in the larger context of the University).

I’d also like in the next several blog entries to spend some time
writing–in general–about what goes through my own mind about
contingency requests–that is those that aren’t planned for.

Jim

Congrats to Krasnow folks on their generosity! And huge thanks to
Erin for organizing our efforts!

Jim

Begin forwarded message:
>
>
> Jim,
> The total raised for the American Red Cross Hurricane Relief was
> $1,045.
> Not too bad! Several people told me that they had already donated
> online as well.
> Erin
>