The University of Utah had 27 grant terminations worth about $10 million in research funding since Donald Trump returned to the presidency three months ago, according to preliminary data.
The federal agencies that cut the most in research funding to the U were the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), at roughly $4.8 million, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, at $1.25 million and the National Science Foundation (NSF), at around $1.1 million, as of last Friday.
The $4.8 million cuts from USAID come as the Trump administration essentially abolished the agency, reducing its 10,000 employees to the legally required 15. The administration’s gutting of the country’s chief agency in charge of foreign aid is one in a series of deep slashes it has made into the federal government.
Brent Brown, the U’s assistant VP for research and director for sponsored projects, presented the summary report of grant cancellations at a virtual Q&A session last Friday.
Brown cautioned that the data is still in development and needs tweaking before it will be officially released since it is an ongoing situation. For instance, a three NSF grants were terminated same morning of the presentation.
Last Thursday, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan resigned. His resignation comes after the federal agency canceled over 400 grants this month, according to the New York Times.
In a statement, the agency’s director said he did all he could “to advance the critical mission of the agency.”
“This is a pivotal moment for our nation in terms of global competitiveness. NSF is an extremely important investment to make U.S. scientific dominance a reality. We must not lose our competitive edge,” said Panchanathan, who Trump appointed to lead the agency in 2020.
Some of the grants awarded to the U that the NSF cancelled include one funding a study investigating visitor responses to the Natural History Museum’s “A Climate of Hope” exhibition. Another grant funded a research project developing ways to make fact-checking misinformation more efficient on a large scale. Research into misinformation and other forms of falsehoods goes against the president’s priorities.
Universities can appeal grant terminations if they so choose. The U already received a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) worth $38 million reinstated last month. However, the NSF’s recent grant termination notification sent to the U stated the agency’s decision was final and could not be appealed.
“We don’t agree with that statement at this point,” Brown said. “There is a set of rules that the NSF requires us to live by, and we hope that they will live by those same rules.”
The rules, Brown said, allows grant recipients to dispute a federal agency’s decision and trigger a review for potential reinstatement.
“We intend to request a review for those cases where [principal investigators] with NSF awards want to pursue a dispute.” He said. “And so we intend to file those regardless of what the termination says.”
