An editorial by Vice President for Research Brian Herman in The Hill outlines positive news for research universities, including the University of Minnesota. The federal 2016 Omnibus Budget recently passed by Congress includes "meaningful increases for organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF)." This reverses a years-long trend of reductions in government funding for scientific research resulting from budget sequestration from FY13-FY15 and inflation, which affects the biomedical sector disproportionally. VP Herman lauds the bill as providing "a much-needed boost to key science agencies that fund university research across the nation," noting that in fiscal 2015 more than 60 percent of research at the University was funded by federal sources.