Penn State will not pull back on research in the face of “staggering” uncertainty about federal funding, said Penn State’s senior vice president for research Andrew Read in a town hall Friday.
“But I wanted you to know the only thing we are certain of is that all of the Penn State leadership, especially me, are dedicated to working with you all to getting back to growing our research impact for decades to come,” Read said.
Read said their biggest concern right now is the 15% cap on indirect costs for National Institutes of Health grants, which a judge has temporarily blocked. He said Penn State’s current rate is roughly 60%.
Read said the lower rate would have meant $40 million less for Penn State last year. And if other federal agencies adopted the lower rate, it would be $90 million less per year for Penn State.
After NIH announced its 15% indirect funding cap, the University of Pennsylvania rescinded some offers to incoming graduate students and the University of Pittsburgh paused its graduate student acceptances. They both bring in much more NIH funding than Penn State.
“There are other institutions that have put in hiring freezes now, that are rescinding offers to graduate students, all that sort of stuff,” Read said. “I think that’s an overreaction.”
Read said Penn State has seen a slowdown in grant awards, but not much effect on current projects.
“Where we sit right now, the executive orders actually haven’t had much direct impact on the ground,” Read said. “So we have stop work orders affecting four (Principal Investigators), just four. And one of those stop work orders was rescinded last week.”
Amanda Wintersteen from Penn State’s office of government and community relations encouraged faculty to advocate for Penn State’s research and share stories of its impact.
“I also want to add that if you’re telling those stories, remaining as an expert rather than an advocate will help you keep the ears of everyone that you’re speaking with to not be deemed to be partisan,” Wintersteen said.
In response to a question about research on DEI issues, Read said the legal situation is unclear and Penn State remains “absolutely committed to inclusive excellence.”
“When they say stuff like ‘cease and desist the illegal DEI activities,’ we don’t do anything illegal,” Read said. “The law hasn’t changed, so I think it’s very ambiguous.”
