A message to the campus from Mike Malone and Laura Vandenberg on 4/22/25
Dear Colleagues,
Please join us for our third webinar in a series aimed at helping PIs diversify their funding portfolios, Navigating the State Funding Landscape - Opportunities and Requirements. The webinar will be held on Wednesday, May 7, 2025, from 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. via Zoom. Register here.
The webinar will provide an overview of Massachusetts funding opportunities (including “Master List” opportunities), the role they play in the larger sponsored research ecosystem, differences and similarities between state sponsors and federal agencies, and how faculty can position themselves for success with state sponsors.
If you were not able to attend the first two webinars, you can review a recording of the presentations using the links below:
- Unlocking Industry Engagement to Support Your Research & Scholarship Webinar: View the video recording here (must log in with NetID & password).
- Private Foundations Support for Research & Scholarship Webinar: View the video recording here (must log in with NetID & password).
At our listening session last Thursday, many questions came up regarding the potential restructuring of federal agencies and how that will impact grants and awards. Here is some of the latest information that is summarized (in italics) from the Americans for Medical Progress (AMP).
NIH: Major budget cuts and restructuring of the agency have been proposed in the president’s budget. On Wednesday April 16th, the Washington Post reported that the administration’s budget proposal includes a dramatic cut to the NIH, slashing its budget by roughly 40%, from over $47 billion to $27 billion. The plan would also consolidate NIH’s 27 institutes and centers (I/Cs) down to just eight.
The proposal establishes a new entity called the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA) that is tasked with, “investigating and addressing the root causes of America’s escalating health crisis, with an initial focus on childhood chronic diseases.”
It’s important to note that this is only a proposal and Congress has historically rejected similar cuts to the NIH (as they did in 2017).
The NIH published a Notice of Civil Rights Term and Condition of Award on April 22nd, which has raised new concerns both at our campus, and at many others, because it modifies the terms and conditions of all NIH grants and cooperative agreements. We are working with the Office of General Counsel (OGC) to understand these new requirements but note that our campus already complies with all applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.
NSF: NSF has paused new awards and dissolved 11 external advisory panels that provided independent oversight and guidance on policy and operational decisions. First announced in Science on April 15th, the decision to dissolve external advisory panels at NSF is part of the agency’s efforts to implement the administration’s executive order to reduce federal bureaucracy. The two advisory panels that remained unaffected were the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE) and the Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships Advisory Committee.
On April 16th, a report published in Science indicated that NSF’s grant reviewing and awarding process has been disrupted. As part of this disruption, the division of grants and awards is returning previously approved grant proposals back to the program officers to determine whether proposals conflict with executive orders. At the same, the agency is not planning on issuing any new awards at this time.
We have received several grant termination notices for awards to faculty, staff, and students on campus. We are continuing to monitor these situations and are working with individuals that are directly affected. We want to reiterate the importance of communicating with us if you receive any messages from your funding agency terminating your award or asking for changes to your scope of work. If PIs or staff receive communications about existing federal awards or programs, please share those with the Office of Post-Award Management (OPAM) (opam@umass.edu) and the Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement (vcre@umass.edu) so that we can assist you with making appropriate changes to your award, if needed. Please do not communicate directly with NSF in response to such notices before seeking advice from the VCRE.
We know that these announcements continue to invoke anxiety and concern amongst the campus community. We want to reiterate what we have shared in our listening sessions: our campus is committed to our shared values and our mission as a research university. These values and our mission remain unchanged.
Please continue to visit the university’s federal actions page and the R&E news site for more information about these and other updates.
Sincerely,
Mike Malone
Vice Chancellor for Research & Engagement
Laura Vandenberg
Associate Vice Chancellor for Research & Engagement
Vice Provost for Research