University of Minnesota: Cuts, halted reviews 'absolutely crippling'

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Minneapolis, MN (MinnPost)

The Trump administration's recent changes to science funding policies could mean millions in cuts now and billions down the road.

The Trump administration's recent changes to science funding policies -- part of a wave of funding cuts across a number of federal agencies -- could initially undercut research activities at the University of Minnesota by $130 million, but nationwide freezes to grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) may cost the school billions in research funding over the coming years.

Earlier this month, the university responded to the Trump administration's announced limits on indirect cost recoveries from federal research grants issued by the NIH. Indirect cost recoveries are portions of research grants that an institution can spend on non-research costs that both literally and figuratively keep the lights on. These funds go toward paying for custodial and facilities staff, research equipment maintenance, secure data storage systems, library operations, safety training and inspections, as well as financial management and other administrative costs.

The new administration's policy change will cap indirect cost recoveries to 15% of funding totals from NIH research grants. In other words, for each full dollar awarded through a congressionally approved grant to directly support research activity, an additional maximum of $0.15 can be spent on indirect support. Prior to the announcement, the University of Minnesota had negotiated a maximum of 54% for indirect cost recoveries from NIH grants, or an additional $0.54 for every dollar of direct research funding.

At a Feb. 13 Board of Regents meeting, the university's executive vice president for finance and operations, Gregg Goldman, said the indirect cost rate cuts would amount to "a $100 million to $130 million impact per year, just for NIH. That doesn't include NSF (National Science Foundation), doesn't include DoD (Department of Defense). If this gets traction, it would just be budgetarily devastating; it would be a tsunami."

University of Minnesota spokesperson Andria Waclawski told MinnPost in an interview that the cuts could bring important clinical and research work to a standstill: "This is job loss, this is patient life disruption. These cuts are disrupting the development of new cures." Waclawski, the university's of director of public relations, added that the nationwide funding changes will "take the United States out of its global position when developing these technologies."

Because the support services funded through indirect cost recovery are budgeted years in advance through each university's individual rate negotiation process, an immediate cut could completely remove key administrative roles necessary to research operations, such as regulatory compliance and hazardous materials management, said Peter Crawford, vice dean of research at the University of Minnesota's medical school.

"A cut of the magnitude proposed would be absolutely crippling to a significant amount of research," Crawford said in an interview.

Beyond decreases in indirect cost recovery rates, executive orders from the new administration called for a complete freeze in federal grant payouts that could cut the University of Minnesota's operating budget by billions over the coming years. In 2024, university research funding from the NIH alone totaled $498 million in direct grants, pass-through grants and indirect costs, or 11% of the university's $4.57 billion operating budget that year.

While multiple court injunctions have stopped the administration from freezing grant payments, at least temporarily, the money is still in limbo due to the administration later freezing the review process for grants from the NIH. The award review process is a necessary procedural step toward approving payments through both new and existing grants, and the freeze to all grant review meetings could effectively halt the cash flow supporting research nationwide, because the renewing and approving of grants wouldn't happen. The meetings constituting that review process must be detailed and posted to the Federal Register before they can convene, according to federal law. The Trump administration is preventing some NIH committees from posting to the Federal Register at all, Crawford said.

Funding from the NIH and other agencies support a number of key biomedical research areas at the University of Minnesota, including innovative cancer immunotherapies and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. "There's a great degree of anxiety and concern," Crawford said. "It's profound. The people that work in these fields are very mission driven, they're committed to the calling that the work supports. The threat of interventions, either economic or procedural, poses a direct threat to the execution of work that will impact thousands of people."

According to Crawford, funding through existing NIH grants has "largely continued to be honored" at the university's previously negotiated indirect rate of 54%. However, the inability to secure new grants will cut off most research funding to the university. "We rely not only on existing contracts, but also on a continuous influx of new awards," said Crawford. "That's where we're particularly concerned; that's where we are considerably hamstrung. It will be difficult to sustain our current pace of work."

An internal memo from January obtained by WBUR from the Department of Health and Human Services, the NIH's parent organization, has added to all this uncertainty by directing agency heads to avoid communicating with external groups such as universities and the media. The flurry of research and support funding cuts, policy changes, agency layoffs and informational firewalls have thrown up difficult roadblocks that scientists and administrators at the University of Minnesota are now trying to navigate, Waclawski said. "It's difficult," she said. "Trying to sort this out is definitely a challenge."

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