By Allie Bidwell

Washington

Leaders of academic research institutions across the nation urged Congress on Tuesday to take action to head off automatic spending cuts that are scheduled to take effect next month.

Members of ScienceWorksForU.S., an awareness project formed by several national university organizations, said in a written statement that the across-the-board cuts, a process known as sequestration, would have a devastating effect on federal support for university research.

The group estimated that if sequestration goes forward, federal research spending would be trimmed by more than $12-billion in 2013 and by nearly $95-billion over the next nine years—a cut they said the nation’s economy cannot afford.

In its statement to Congress, the group—composed of members of the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and the Science Coalition—said that universities conduct a majority of basic scientific and medical research in the United States and, “as such, are ground zero for the discovery and innovation that fuels the economy…read more