Penn State has launched a petition urging lawmakers in Washington to protect federal research funding, following cuts that have already forced the termination of dozens of research projects.
Andrew Read, the university’s senior vice president of research, said the Trump administration has terminated about 60 grants, totaling about $10 million to $12 million in lost research funding. Read said that accounts for about 1% of Penn State’s total grants.
Read said another large grant, just short of $20 million, is uncertain.
The affected projects range across an array of fields, including diversity and inclusion, population, health, vaccines related to cervical cancer prevention, infectious diseases (particularly HIV), climate change, misinformation and disinformation research, food insecurity, Jewish and Indigenous studies, and arts and humanities.
“This is devastating for the principal investigators that were doing the research and the trainees that were on those grants, graduate students and so forth,” Read said. “But the most important impact is on the people that would have benefited from the research.”
Read warned that beyond current cuts, future grants are also at risk as national appropriations shrink. He said that could mean fewer opportunities for students, fewer research breakthroughs, and a “smaller research footprint” for Penn State.
“The problem there is the people who benefit from the research — the farmers, the patients, the war fighters, the business folks — those people won't get the benefits of the research we would otherwise have done.” Read said
Currently Penn State ranks among the top 30 U.S. universities for research expenditures. Read said that standing could be challenged if budget cuts prevail.
“I've met with legislators on both sides of that aisle in D.C., and I would say all of them are interested in how we can keep American research and development at the forefront internationally, and all of them are concerned about the possibility we might fall behind other countries, particularly adversarial countries,” he said.
However Read said there is little agreement on the outcome of the future of research among lawmakers.
Penn State’s government relations office launched the petition urging lawmakers to protect research funding. It has garnered over 6,000 signatures and counting, and will be sent to Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation in the coming weeks.
“Right now, we're in a very, very challenging time where the successes of the last 80 years of prosperity and health and wealth and so forth for the nation have been generated through this federal-university partnership, and right now, that's being very seriously challenged,” Read said.