The federal government has canceled close to 40 Penn State research grants so far, as part of a broader sweep to slash science research funding, and Penn State’s head of research told the Faculty Senate Tuesday that the number of terminated grants could continue to grow.
Andrew Read, senior vice president for research, said 35 federal grants to Penn State had been terminated, including some that Penn State researchers were working with other universities on. He estimated that adds up to $10 million. By later in the meeting, three more grants had been canceled, bringing the total to 38.
Read said in the scheme of $1.3 billion dollars in research expenditures, Penn State is doing much better than many of its peers, but the situation is “extremely fast-moving" and “fluid.”
“The big concern is that there are a lot more of these to come," he said, later adding those concerns include climate-related research funding.
Since President Trump took office, his administration has canceled hundreds of research grants, in some cases if those grants mention or focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. Some institutions have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding.
Read said he thinks DEI and broader impact statements may be a major area where Penn State grants are encountering issues. He said some federal agencies have given clear directions on what grant applicants should do including removing certain language, while others such as NASA and NOAA have been less clear. He said the university is working to get clarity on that for faculty to use moving forward.
“It is a bit like reading the tea leaves though," Read said. "I want to manage expectations, that we’re going to have our best shot at this. And it doesn’t necessarily mean, given the situation, that we are going to get it right all of the time. We have a lot of learning to do in this space, but it is a very important issue.”
He encouraged faculty to continue applying for federal research grants and using the ones they currently have.
Speaking of the faculty, or principal investigators, who have lost funding, Read said they face incredible competition just to get these grants.
“It’s a tragedy for the PIs involved. It’s a tragedy for the people that are employed on those grants, that are being trained on those grants. It’s a loss to scholarship," Read said. "It’s a loss to the stakeholders whose lives would have been impacted by that research.”
Read's research area is infectious diseases.
“It breaks my heart to look at the projects we’ve had canceled on HIV prevention, vaccines to prevent cervical cancer, and just recently one on syphilis diagnosis that affects the health of newborn babies," Read said.
The Trump administration also wants to cap at 15% the amount of federal grant funding universities could allocate to overhead costs.
Michelle Campos, a faculty member in the College of the Liberal Arts, said she was one of those three humanities grants recipients who was just notified of a grant termination while the meeting was underway.
She asked Read, "What, if any, legal actions Penn State is considering participating in either on its own or as part of these larger organizations nationally to protect the hard-won and duly deserved federal research grants that we are deep in the process of carrying out that research.”
Read said Penn State is in discussions with both its legal counsel and peers across the country on how to handle individual grants and on the possibility of joining legal action. He said he was not in a position to announce anything, but that Penn State is looking at what can be done in the case of individual grants.
Faculty Senate calls on Penn State to join Big Ten academic defense compact
The Faculty Senate voted Tuesday to urge Penn State to join a “mutual academic defense compact” with other Big Ten universities. The resolution calls for creating a shared fund to support institutions’ academic freedom and research and provide support if they’re targeted by the Trump administration.
