After Trump grant cuts, some universities give researchers a lifeline

From ScienceMag:

Last fall, Keith Maggert’s grant proposal to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to extend his work in chromosome biology and gene regulation received a score from reviewers that put it over the threshold for funding. Final approval was due in February, but turmoil at NIH delayed it until late May, leaving him with a gap in supporting his fly genetics lab at the University of Arizona (UA).

This week, however, he received $37,619 in short-term support from another source: his own university. The money will allow him to continue to pay two graduate students and buy needed supplies. Maggert is one of seven UA faculty members to date who have benefited from the university’s new “bridge” program, designed for those whose research has been disrupted by the wave of spending cuts and freezes in grantmaking by President Donald Trump and his administration.

Several U.S. universities are taking similar steps to assist their researchers in dire straits. They’re experimenting with different flavors—for example, some are helping faculty reimagine their research programs while others try to ensure their doctoral students are able to complete their degrees. Most aren’t sharing how much money they are committing to these efforts, though wealthier institutions probably can do more to keep labs afloat. And all bridge programs are likely to be oversubscribed.

Still, the current moment calls for action, administrators say. “This is unprecedented and uncharted waters,” says Wendy Hensel, president of the University of Hawaii (UH) System, which has launched a bridge program focused on students in labs whose grants have been cut. “During the COVID pandemic, we received significant support from the federal and state government. The difference here is, there will be no one riding to the rescue.”

Bridge programs aren’t new. Research universities historically have used them when faculty members hit a bump in the road in winning federal grants. But the series of land mines the Trump administration has detonated since 20 January, including the dismantling of several agencies, decrees banning certain types of research, and the threats to some universities’ entire research portfolios, raise a new set of challenges.

As universities seek ways to sustain their researchers, Yale School of Medicine is among the most generous. It is making an unspecified amount of money available, on a competitive basis, to faculty members whose existing NIH grant has been “precipitously” terminated or whose pending proposal has been frozen. “The idea is to preserve our investment in individual faculty as well as in their research, and frankly, to preserve the investment of taxpayers as well,” says the medical school’s dean, Nancy Brown. Faculty can request up to 90% of the amount being blocked, according to a notice posted when the program was announced on 18 February.

Before submitting a proposal, the notice says, applicants must consult with colleagues on how best to “reimagine” their research. The idea is to help faculty “pivot,” Brown says, either to a topic the government is more likely to support or to a more receptive federal agency. “It has to be a bridge to somewhere,” she explains.

Other institutions are more constrained in responding to faculty requests. As Vassilis Syrmos, vice president for research and innovation at UH, puts it, “We don’t have the financial capacity to be a sponsor of the type of research in which we excel.”

Instead, UH is focusing on the graduate students of faculty members who have lost grants, with help from the UH Foundation, which raises money for the university from private donors. “Of course we care about our faculty and staff, but our primary obligation is to our students,” Hensel says. “So priority number one is to find an alternative source of funding that allows them to continue to progress in their research and their degree program.”

Syrmos is hoping the foundation will raise $500,000 over the next 6 to 12 months to rescue as many as a quarter of the 750 UH graduate students in science and engineering who he estimates will be affected by the cutbacks. The university has already received termination and stop-work orders for 32 projects ranging from community-based health research to oceanography, a number he expects to grow.

At the University of Massachusetts (UMass), students are also likely to be key beneficiaries. Michael Malone, UMass’s vice president for research, says he expects requests to pay graduate student stipends will soak up most of the money set aside for its bridge program. He says UMass is also prepared to support requests for additional equipment and supplies if needed for a student to complete their doctoral work.

Most universities with bridge programs have set limits on how much they will contribute. UMass and the University of Michigan both require the faculty member’s department to match the university’s contribution. At UA, Tomás Díaz de la Rubia, senior vice president for research and innovation, says the university wants its faculty to remain productive despite the Trump administration–ordered cuts, but won’t support researchers proposing to move into a new area. And if the federal government reopens the spigot, most institutions will require faculty to return any bridge funding they receive.

Columbia University, where the Trump administration has put hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research grants in jeopardy, declined to say whether it plans any type of competititive bridge program. But in a 4 April letter to the community, acting President Claire Shipman said the university “has made a near-term commitment to pay the salaries and stipends of those affected, as we work to restore funding and consider alternative funding mechanisms.”

An institution’s endowment may seem like an obvious source of alternative funding; Columbia’s amounted to $14.8 billion last year. But college presidents are loath to tap the principal. And university administrators insist that most of the earnings from that pot of money are already earmarked for other purposes, notably student financial aid and construction of new research facilities.

Instead, most universities are turning to the federal funds they already receive to reimburse them for providing the facilities and administrative support needed to do research. But those funds, known as indirect costs, are also under attack from the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, who have accused universities of accumulating a “slush fund” by overcharging the government in negotiating individual payment rates.

In February, NIH proposed to slash those rates, potentially depriving grantee institutions of billions of dollars annually. Last week, after a federal judge permanently blocked the move, the government appealed her ruling to a higher court.

The dispute may be one reason most institutions have declined to announce how much they intend to spend on bridge programs. If universities with uncapped bridge programs like Yale’s are to fully meet the demand from faculty in the months to come, that could come to millions of dollars. “Nobody wants to look like they have extra money lying around to support faculty and graduate students if the government shuts down their research,” says one university administrator who requested anonymity to speak freely about the sensitive issue.

To respond more quickly to the current crisis, Syrmos says UH may increase the share of its indirect cost payments that go into a central pot, now 25%, to boost the potential budget of its bridge program. But he says UH will never be able to make up for the missing federal support. Operating the university’s research vessel costs from $35,000 to $50,000 a day, he notes, meaning a 2-week cruise could eat up the entire sum being raised by the foundation.

“Our bridge program is just a way to provide them with a soft landing while we try to figure out how to solve the problem in the long run,” Syrmos says. “And that could require a new business model.”

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