- University of Utah leaders offer reassurances, confidence to medical researchers at the school.
- Federal judge temporarily blocks National Institutes of Health from implementing modified medical grant policy.
- Supporters of the new NIH grant policy say it ensures accountability.
The University of Utah is in danger of losing an estimated $50 million in medical research grant dollars a year because of a proposed Trump administration change, university officials said Tuesday.
The university held a “pep talk” for researchers on Tuesday, led by President Taylor Randall, where they were told to stay the course as the battle over the policy plays out in court. He said the school is also working with state and federal lawmakers on the issue.
Randall and other university leaders in Utah would be affected by a policy change at the National Institutes of Health that would limit how much overhead researchers could ask for when applying for grants. Officials at Utah State University and Brigham Young University did not immediately respond to requests for comment on how they could be affected.
Late Monday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the NIH from implementing the new policy. A hearing to revisit the temporary restraining order is scheduled for Feb. 21.
Under the new policy, a cap would be set on the amount grant recipients could request for “indirect” costs — funds that grant recipients are allowed to use on facility and administrative expenses. Researchers could ask for no more than 15% of the total grant amount under the new policy.
The Trump administration announced the new policy on Friday. In its memo outlining its grant policy change, the NIH noted that the United States should have the world’s best medical research — so it’s vital “to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead.”
The country’s medical research community immediately protested the change — arguing it would undermine breakthroughs in cancer, diabetes and other disease research.
University of Utah researchers: Forge ahead
The University of Utah’s research community is deeply linked to the NIH. The state’s flagship university, which houses Utah’s only medical degree-granting medical school, received $291 million in NIH grants in 2023.
Meanwhile, initial estimates of lost “indirect” funding from the proposed NIH cuts is approximately $50 million, according to school spokesperson Rebecca Walsh.
On Tuesday, university leaders met with the school’s research community for a Zoom “town hall” to provide updates on the evolving issue — while offering an institutional pep talk to anxious researchers.
Their message: We are resilient. We are ready.
University of Utah Vice President for Research Erin Rothwell began by emphasizing the institution’s shared commitment to advancing research, innovation and discovery. “Our institution,” she said “has long been at the forefront of groundbreaking work, and we are committed to strengthening that legacy.”
Dr. Bob Carter, a physician and veteran medical researcher who was recently hired as the CEO of University of Utah Health, echoed the elemental role science plays in creating new therapies, cures and strategies for approaching human health.
“This is an incredibly exciting reason why the University of Utah, its laboratories, its principal investigators, its scientists, are so important,” he said.
Recent NIH mandates, added Carter, “are upsetting” — and could be perceived as damaging to the university’s research mission.
“We’re hopeful that cooler heads will prevail in the coming weeks,” he said. “We’re working actively to understand the full impact of this change at a financial and a social level, and how we get our work done going forward. … We need to forge ahead.”
Carter highlighted the economic impact of federally funded research in the Utah ecosystem.
“In Utah, the NIH funding supports over 4,500 jobs and almost $785 million in economic activity,” he said. “And the bio industry … supports over 40,000 jobs and almost 1,800 businesses.”
Be resilient, unified and focused, he added. “This is going to be an opportunity for us to show what we’re made of.”
Calls for medical research advocacy
Randall said the school’s administrators are still formulating answers to the NIH challenge, but he articulated short- and long-term strategies.
In the short-term, he said, the temporary restraining order issued by the courts Monday “will allow us to continue to do our work.”
So, Randall admonished the researchers, “Do your work the way you have been.”
The long-term strategy, meanwhile, is anchored to advocacy, he said.
“It will occur both locally, in our Legislature, but also nationally with our federal delegation,” he said. “We’ve already made contact with our federal delegation multiple times … employing the position of the university and why these funds are actually so important to all of us.”
Randall assured researchers that the university has “always maintained” a strong financial position.
“I don’t believe we’re facing a cliff, but certainly we are facing an imminent problem, an imminent threat,” he said. “Over the next few weeks, we will be able to provide more detailed information on how we can handle the various effects with that.”
Rothwell said the school will continue working with partners in the medical research community to navigate the legal waters while responding to the NIH changes. In the meantime, she said, researchers at the university should “continue to work and submit your grants as normal.”
University of Utah Provost Mitzi Montoya said the NIH issue does not currently affect graduate student procedures. “We’re not pausing with graduate admissions.”
The nation is three weeks into the Trump administration, noted Rothwell — “and a lot of uncertainty remains.”
Still, she was able to answer a few pressing queries from the school’s research community:
First, will there be layoffs?
“No. We are committed to our employees and to all the wonderful staff and research administrators that support our institution.”
And second, will there be a hiring freeze?
“No, not at this time — and I don’t foresee one.”
Rothwell also responded to the NIH’s claim that that the “indirect” cost rates practiced by grant-awarding private foundations offer templates for the federal government to follow.
It’s not an “apples to apples” comparison, she said. The research connected with private foundations, she said, is fundamentally different from the discovery “or basic science” that research institutions perform.
Updated NIH policy: Opposing voices
Beyond the University of Utah campus, the NIH’s updated grant policy is triggering ardent calls of opposition — and support.
The Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities warned that the NIH’s actions “will slow and limit medical breakthroughs that cure cancer and address chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.”
And The Association of American Medical Colleges asserted that the Trump administration’s actions to modify grant policies would result in “irreparable harm to the research mission — leaving institutions no choice but to scale back research activities.
“This could mean fewer clinical trials, less fundamental discovery research, and slower progress in delivering lifesaving advances to the patients and families that do have time for any delay.”
Meanwhile, White House spokesperson Kush Desai dismissed the hostile response to the NIH’s new policy as “hysteria.”
“Redirecting billions of allocated NIH spending away from administrative bloat means there will be more money and resources available for legitimate scientific research, not less,” said Desai in a statement to Fox News Digital.
On its X site, the Department of Government Efficiency praised the modified federal medical grant policy: “Amazing job by the @NIH team. Saved >$4B annually in excessive grant administrative costs.”
Dr. Vinay Prasad, a physician and health researcher and a popular social media figure, insists Trump is correct to slice grant “indirects.”
“This money is largely unaccountable to the American people,” wrote Prasad. “A famous researcher likes to say that ‘an NIH dollar is more valuable than any other dollar’ precisely because the money can be used for any purpose.”
In 2023, the NIH reportedly spent more than $35 billion on almost 50,000 competitive grants to more than 2,500 American universities, medical schools and other research institutions.
“Of this funding, approximately $26 billion went to direct costs for research, while $9 billion was allocated to overhead through NIH’s indirect cost rate,” according to the NIH report.
