For many years, Russ Middaugh was one of those researchers who didn’t feel comfortable asking Congress for financial aid to help his research.

He figured his research projects should be reviewed by his peers before he got funding. And he had enough competitive grants from corporations and agencies to fund his lab, which uses chemical compounds to stabilize vaccines for transport or long-term storage.

Then, at the suggestion of Kansas University administrators, Middaugh worked with Sen. Pat Roberts to obtain an earmarked research grant — referred to by many as “pork barrel” grants — to claim $1.5 million in new Department of Defense funds available in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

Middaugh’s new research looks at vaccines that fight anthrax and two other biological agents that might be used in a terrorist attack.

And he’s changed his mind about earmarked grants.

“Before I got one, I was opposed to them,” said Middaugh, a KU professor of pharmaceutical chemistry. “I thought these things should have been competitive. But the things we’re trying to do I don’t think we could have got funded — and it’s of national importance.”

Kansas ranks 39th

Middaugh is among an increasing number of researchers taking advantage of earmarked grants, which are noncompetitive grants included in federal legislation. In the fiscal year ending June 30, earmarked grants exceeded $2 billion for the first time, topping out at $2.012 billion — a 10 percent increase over the previous fiscal year and more than six times as high as the amount approved in 1996, according to an analysis by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Kansas raked in $13.5 million, ranking it 39th in pork among the 50 states. Last year, Kansas projects received $7 million in earmarks.

Kansas University graduate students Jason Rexroad, left, and Laura Driver, center, join LaToya Jones, KU postdoctoral fellow, in the vaccine institute lab at KU's Smissman Research Laboratories to analyze the structure and stability of vaccines. Their work is part of a federal earmarked grant. In all, four projects at KU this year received earmarked, or pork

In the past five years, the state has garnered $63.6 million, ranking it 32nd among the states.

KU researchers shared portions of $4.7 million in pork-barrel grants, mostly relating to the detection of and response to biological terrorism. Kansas State University shared portions of $2.4 million in grants — most involved with agriculture and food safety — and Wichita State University shared $4.97 million in grants, most related to aircraft safety.

‘Catch-22’

“What is comes down to is Kansas is pretty middle of the road,” said Jim Roberts, interim vice provost for research at KU. “You don’t want to be excessive, but as long as the practice goes on, you want to take advantage of it on issues that will help the university and country.”

Ron Trewyn, vice provost for research at Kansas State, said his university took a similar approach.

“It’s this Catch-22,” Trewyn said. “As long a this practice is going on … we need to encourage our members of our delegation to be as supportive of these types of initiatives so we’re not at a disadvantage.”

State universities typically provide the state’s congressional delegation with a list of potential earmark projects in late winter.

Jim Roberts said several criteria typically made research a good candidate for earmarks:

• It’s a new focus for KU that needs startup money to build a program for winning competitive grants.
• It’s so specialized no competitive grants exist.
• It’s on such a new topic that no competitions exist.
• It involves an issue of national importance.

In the case of Middaugh’s vaccine research, he said few National Institutes of Health programs existed in his area.

“This is fairly applied research, and it’s difficult to get the government to fund applied research” through competitions, Middaugh said. “They tend to fund basic research, then rely on companies for the applied research.”

But few companies see financial gain in stabilizing vaccines, he said, since many are distributed to poor countries that can’t afford to pay for them.

‘Investment’

Keith Yehle, legislative director for Roberts, said universities were likely to get earmarks for the projects they ask for — but they know better than to ask for many.

“What we rely on the research universities to do is to approach us with their research ideas, their areas of expertise,” he said. “They know, using that (expertise), if their top goals are one, two and three. And maybe we can get all three of them.”

Yehle said congressional offices also kept an eye out for national research needs that could involve a Kansas university.

He said prime candidates for earmarks were grants that would allow state universities to build infrastructure for future research grants.

“Some people may accuse this as being a pork-barrel project,” Yehle said. “We see it as an investment in the state of Kansas, an investment in the people who help the higher education system.”

Uncertain future

Trewyn said earmarks also helped level the playing field for Midwestern scientists.

Competitive research programs have long been criticized for including too many scientists from East Coast and West Coast universities on their review boards — which some say leads to the selection of a disproportionate number of projects from the coasts.

“I think we have excellent scientists at our research universities in this region,” Trewyn said. “But we’re always limited on resources. You’re looking for ways to leverage your expertise to become most competitive. You have to look at all the potential funds to do that.”

Roberts said he expected KU to continue to request earmarks relating to homeland security and bioterrorism. Though there has been discussion among some in Congress to discontinue the research grants in favor of competitions, Roberts said he didn’t know what to expect with the earmark funding in the future — or how KU would fare in the process.

“I don’t know how it will ultimately sort out,” he said. “Some of the reality of it is going to be what our delegation wants to do. We tell them the ideas we have, and they may tell us some of what their needs and interests are.”