On Jan. 29, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget rescinded Memorandum M-25-13, which ordered a pause on federal grants, including billions of dollars in federal funding to colleges and universities across the country.
The order was blocked by U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan, which has prevented its implementation.
According to University of Oregon spokesperson Eric Howald, 91% of UO’s $178 million budget for research between 2023 and 2024 was financed by federal funds.
Anshuman Razdan, vice president of innovation and research, emphasized the importance of a federally funded university for research.
“Millions of American schoolchildren use educational materials developed at the University of Oregon,” Razdan said in an email statement to The Daily Emerald. “The bottom line is that university research is absolutely critical to our society and to the economy — not for any one group but for everyone.”
Ben Mannix, a PhD student at UO and the lead steward of natural sciences with the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, said the majority of research assistants are funded by grants from federal agencies.
“Our advisors, usually faculty, apply to federal agencies for grants. They receive these grants, they get deposited into UO accounts and that’s how we’re paid,” Mannix said.
Mannix said the funding often comes from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy, among others.
“If these agencies are either gutted through worker fires or funding freezes, or whatever it may be, in the future when our advisors go to reapply for more funding, the funding may get denied, it may take too long to process and for graduate employees, that means people may struggle to have the funding to finish their PhDs,” Mannix said.
Currently, Mannix said those who may be impacted by funding cuts include those receiving grants from the NIH.
“We’re keeping an eye on people who are funded through the National Institutes of Health because Trump orders have targeted funding through that institute specifically,” Mannix said.
According to Mannix, cuts in federal funding could impact UO’s status as a research institution.
“As an R1 institution, you need to be doing ‘x’ amount of research and graduating some number of PhD students per year,” Mannix said. “(GTFF is) in an information gathering stage ourselves, but a lot is unknown… we’re waiting to see how this plays out in the courts.”
As of March 6, the spending freeze has been blocked by a second federal judge, U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr.
