The economic stimulus package signed by President Barack Obama last year has created or retained nearly 189 jobs in labs and offices at HMS, according to the April quarterly report from Harvard to the federal government. The report is the most complete jobs accounting to date.
The stimulus-funded jobs are counted as full-time equivalents, and they include the full or partial salaries of about 400 people, not including tenured faculty members. Another 20 jobs were created or retained at other institutions as part of the HMS research projects subcontracted to collaborators. The figures do not include the Recovery Act awards to Harvard faculty members based at affiliated institutions.
The jobs come from the unprecedented boost in support for biomedical and healthcare research and training included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. HMS investigators have received 125 highly rated awards totaling nearly $99 million to advance a wave of scientific inquiry that will foster new understanding and spur future innovation, in addition to sustaining jobs that help lay the groundwork for future science-based economic growth.
In the latest Recovery Act award totaling $15 million, for example, HMS researchers and their collaborators are developing the software and infrastructure to support the next generation of innovation in health information technology, enabling the equivalent of the iTunes App Store for health. The principal investigators are Isaac Kohane, the Lawrence J. Henderson professor of pediatrics at HMS and Children’s Hospital Boston and director of the Countway Library of Medicine at HMS, and Kenneth Mandl, HMS associate professor of pediatrics at Children’s.
The latest numbers and grant descriptions are available at http://recovery.gov.
For more information, see http://www.hms.harvard.edu/spa/funding/stimulus.shtml and http://research.harvard.edu.
