After some federal grants reinstated, researchers struggle to restart projects
Researchers who had their federal grants terminated by the Trump administration—and later had them reinstated thanks to a federal judge’s ruling—say that the process of getting their projects moving again has been marked by confusion and delays.
An August 3 Boston Globe article described the funding uncertainties that have hung over researchers since the Trump administration began rescinding federal research grants several months ago.
In mid-June, a federal judge in Boston ordered that nearly 900 biomedical research grants that had been rescinded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—grants related to topics such as gender identity, health disparities, vaccines, and diversity—had to be reinstated. The ruling came in response to lawsuits filed by the American Public Health Association and 16 states.
Researchers quoted in the Boston Globe article said that, in spite of the ruling, they face a number of obstacles in restarting their work, including grant funding that has yet to be reinstated, reduced staffing due to layoffs, and shorter deadlines to finish studies.
There are other worries. The Trump administration is planning to appeal the judge’s ruling. And federal funding has been unstable overall—for instance, on July 29, the administration announced a broad NIH funding freeze, only to rescind it a few hours later.
“Every indication is that the NIH will continue to cut research on trans health and on DEI,” said Scott Delaney, research scientist in Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health and co-creator of Grant Witness (formerly Grant Watch), a website that has compiled a near-comprehensive list of canceled grants. “They still remain hostile to broad bodies of research, and they continue to ask researchers to rewrite their grants to avoid certain topics.”
Nancy Krieger, professor of social epidemiology at Harvard Chan School, was also quoted in the article. Although her grant was restored—for a years-long project aimed at measuring the impact of various types of discrimination on health—she has not been able to access the funds because the NIH continues to block disbursement of any funds to Harvard University.
“We can resume the work because we had completed all data collection and we were in the phase of data analysis and manuscript preparation,” Krieger said. “Whether or not the funding ever truly gets reinstated for my grant—and I would like that it is—it’s important, given the complexities, to make sure these things go from a court order to reality.”
Read the Boston Globe article: ‘Great news but a weird twist.’ After the NIH moved to restore hundreds of grants researchers remain in limbo.
Learn more
Federal judge rules hundreds of NIH grant terminations illegal (Harvard Chan School news)
