The effects of the Trump administration’s decision to freeze more than $2.2 billion in federal funding to Cambridge, Mass.-based Harvard University are coming into sharper focus, as researchers begin to receive stop work orders for multimillion-dollar projects.
On April 14, federal officials said they would freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants along with a $60 million contract to the school as part of an investigation into the university’s handling of antisemitic harassment on its campus. In a statement to the Harvard community the same day, President Alan Garber, MD, PhD, said the university is committed to address antisemitic harassment, but described the administration’s proposed agreement — which outlined conditions for continued federal funding — as an overreach that infringes on academic freedom.
The funding pause came after the university rejected a wide range of reforms the Trump administration had said Harvard must enact in order to “maintain a financial relationship with the federal government.” The demands included governance and leadership reforms; a halt on all diversity, equity and inclusion programs and a “viewpoint diversity” audit of all academic departments.
Six notes:
- Harvard researchers began receiving stop-work orders for projects on April 15, according to The Wall Street Journal. The orders are arriving piecemeal, with the university learning which projects are being halted as researchers are notified.
- So far, medical research projects that were brought to a halt include a $60 million contract for an international tuberculosis study; a $15.2 million project to develop treatments for long-term radiation exposure; and a $700,100 project on early detection of ALS.
- Sarah Fortune, MD, an immunologist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who leads the tuberculosis study, is weighing staff layoffs, she told WSJ. The research program was considered one of the world’s most preeminent on tuberculosis. It had uncovered key breakthroughs in determining why some people’s immune systems keep the infection at bay, while others succumb, The Boston Globe reported.
- On April 14, Harvard University refreshed its homepage, stating that ongoing studies on cancer, heart disease, obesity, dementia, infectious diseases and organ transplantation could be halted if further funding cuts materialize.
“Harvard is home to the world’s most cutting-edge medical, scientific and technological research,” the school said on its webpage. “For decades, that research has been supported by the federal government, among many other sponsors.”
“Without federal funding, this work will come to a halt midstream, and researchers will lack necessary resources to finish ongoing projects or to finance new ones in the numerous fields Harvard supports,” the webpage states. - The $2.2 billion funding freeze follows other grant cuts the university has seen in recent weeks. Across the country, including at Harvard, some research institutions have seen National Institutes of Health grants reduced or withdrawn when projects were deemed outside the agency’s core priorities.
- Teaching hospitals affiliated with Harvard University will not be affected by the funding freeze, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education told The Boston Globe in a statement April 16. However, physicians at Mass General Brigham, a Harvard affiliate, have raised concerns that the freeze could still indirectly affect them. Most clinicians at MGB hold Harvard Medical School faculty appointments.
