As continued cuts to federal scientific research funding persist, it becomes difficult to parse out the impacts. However, one particular impact is clear: the budget reduction plans will have short and long-term effects felt by universities, federal employees and the public health system at large.
Key among these reduction plans is a restructuring of National Institutes of Health (NIH) fund allocations for university research. The plans also include reduced support for agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Infectious Disease within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The main avenues of reducing federal support of the sciences include laying off federal employees, reducing budgets and limiting focus on diversity in the field. NIH budget cuts alone proposed withdrawing $136 million from the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, as well as the complete removal of the Fogarty International Center, a section of the NIH devoted to training members of the scientific community to work in developing countries.
The Trump administration has said they see these changes as a way to prevent waste in what the administration views as over expenditure. In contrast, leaders within the scientific community have raised concerns about impending impacts, including the discontinuation of potentially lifesaving studies, shattered opportunities for students and the jeopardized future of the United States as a leader in biomedical research. Public health is also an area of concern, as universities will lack the resources to do the science that allows new treatments to be created and the people trained to solve public health crises are laid off.
Of particular relevance on a college campus is the impact on university funding. The NIH has changed its indirect cost policy to be capped at 15% for all organizations it funds, including universities. Indirect cost funding helps keep university research afloat; without it, research buildings themselves could not be maintained.
Supporters of the change argue it will force universities to invest more heavily in their own research out of their endowment funds. In contrast, those against the budget cuts raise a series of concerns. These cuts force universities to remove programs that give students invaluable research experience and help launch their careers. In Louisiana State University’s graduate assistantship program, the cuts have already begun to necessitate acceptances for postgraduate programs being offered only conditionally upon funding.
Members of university labs at risk of losing key funding raise fears that many university-based projects will be forced to halt or end. Such terminations could have sweeping implications for researchers’ ability to continue developing scientific knowledge, while also threatening the United States’ position as a leader in scientific advancement. Furthermore, labs at U.S. universities may struggle to draw talent from abroad in an era of uncertain research security.
Universities will not be the only research groups to struggle. Government agencies have and will struggle with the consequences of these federal decisions including workforce reductions and a need to restructure research to fit within the administration’s terms.
The CDC has already been forced to lay off hundreds of people, including public health professionals trained in outbreak response. This will leave the United States vulnerable to communicable illnesses and deaths that could have been avoided. The EPA is also threatened by a proposed 31% budget cut, including an almost $130 million reduction of investments in clean air and water. The same proposal also would also cut $1 billion in funding for the National Cancer Institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Retained staff in many departments have had to remove vocabulary associated with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) measures, such as the words “gender,” “pregnant people” and “environmental justice” from project titles and public access information. These changes include the NSF’s rewriting of grant requests and current projects to remove any words considered associated with DEI, according to a list penned by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). This is likely to exacerbate the underrepresentation of minority populations, including disabled people, in clinical trials, reducing the amount of data available for specific demographics.
Georgetown University is full of students whose ability to find summer or postgraduate research programs will be threatened, whose existence has only returned to normal in the last few years after a pandemic handled by a fully-staffed CDC, or who anxiously read more and more news each year of climate-related disasters affecting peers or family. The sweeping overhaul of federal science funding feels inescapable and all-encompassing in only a few short months, leaving uncertainty on how much can still change before graduation, whether that is weeks away or over three years away.
While supporters of science have and are pushing back against these decisions, uncertainty looms as to whether these efforts to protect funding for biomedical research will succeed.