Updated February 12, 2025 at 11:44 AM ET
Most medical research in the U.S. is funded by the National Institutes of Health. But a new Trump administration policy would significantly lower the agency's funding for major research institutions across the country.
The policy, currently blocked by a federal court, would limit NIH research funding for "indirect costs," or overhead expenses, to 15%, which is far below what some institutions receive.
Harvard's NIH indirect rate was 69% last year, meaning the NIH covered $135 million of its indirect cost expenses. Under the new policy, Harvard would have received $31 million, the university's Vice Provost for Research John H. Shaw said in a legal filing submitted in support of a lawsuit filed by universities against NIH.
Research institutions use these grants to maintain buildings and labs, provide supplies and equipment, and pay support staff. University officials across the nation warn the recent move could disrupt critical research.
Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the journal Science, recently wrote an editorial in which he called the Trump administration's move a "betrayal of a partnership that has enabled American innovation and progress."
On Morning Edition, NPR's A Martínez and Thorp, a chemistry professor and former chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discussed how funding cuts would affect universities and research institutions.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
A Martínez: First, tell us a bit about how and why government money ends up at educational institutions in the first place.
Holden Thorp: About 70 years ago, after World War II, the U.S. decided that instead of building its own research buildings and hiring its own scientists, that it wanted to carry out the national research effort at universities. The idea behind this was mainly that the professors carrying out the research would be more independent and come up with more creative ideas than if they were directed by the government. But this is a costly thing to do.
So, the institutions and the government decided they would roughly split the costs. The federal government's contribution to that social contract comes in the "indirect costs" portion of the grant, which is a fraction of the direct costs that they're contributing.
The easy way to think about it is that the institutions and the government have been splitting roughly 50/50 the costs of building the research enterprise in the U.S.
Martínez: What kind of financial trade offs would administrators have to consider under this policy?
Thorp: There are a lot of numbers floating around from different institutions as to how much they would be cut. But a lot of the larger ones would have to find $150 [million] or even $200 million every year to replace the money that they're getting from the federal government.
The choices that they have are all pretty bleak. They'd have to cut other programs in order to fill that hole in, which could affect any discipline or any function of the university. Or they would have to cut corners in the way they administer the research, which could create all kinds of problems with accounting or noncompliance with the government's regulations.
Martínez: And those numbers you were talking about sound a little too much just to fundraise to try and cover, right?
Thorp: It would really be hard to get philanthropy to pay that, not just because it's a large number, but also because these aren't exactly functions – waste disposal or paying for grants administrators – that donors get very excited about funding.
Martínez: The NIH pointed out this policy would bring it more in line with private foundations, which pay less than the government for indirect costs. It also said the change would assure that more money would go directly to research rather than overhead. Holden, do those arguments hold water for you?
Thorp: I understand where those arguments are coming from. As far as the foundations are concerned, I think the difference there is that those foundations were not part of the social contract that led to the development of the federal research enterprise. And in a way, those funds are actually defraying additional funds for direct costs that the federal government might have had to provide to do the same research.
Destinee Adams contributed.
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