Trump administration threat to end Harvard contracts puts research at risk

UPI

a day ago

1 of 2 | The Trump administration is seeking to end all contracts it has with Harvard University, a move that adds to the strain between the federal government and America's researchers. Photo by CJ Gunther/EPA-EFE
May 30 (UPI) -- The Trump administration is seeking to end all contracts it has with Harvard University, a move that adds to the strain between the federal government and America's researchers.
The administration announced on Tuesday that it is in the process of reviewing its contracts with Harvard in preparation for their termination. The move may cost the United States a generation of top researchers, Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff in the American Council of Education's government relations department, told UPI.
"We're going to lose grad students or post-docs that might have been educated in those federally funded labs," Spreitzer said. "The undergrads are going to lose the opportunity of working alongside those researchers and learning from their work."
Harvard has contracts partnering with government departments including NASA, Veterans Affairs, the Office of the Secretary in the Department of Commerce and the Small Business Administration. Dozens of these contracts have been entered into, extended or otherwise updated since President Donald Trump took office.
Harvard University did not respond to requests for comment from UPI.
One of the largest contracts Harvard holds with the government is a $15 million contract from the Department of Health and Human Services. It is described in the Federal Procurement Data System as a "task order for human organ chip enabled development of radiation countermeasures." It was entered into on July 26.
Another of its largest contracts is a $10.6 million contract with the National Institutes of Health for tuberculosis research. Harvard holds more than one contract with the government related to this work.
"They want to do more with less," Spreitzer said of the Trump administration. "They're making decisions based on budgetary impacts but that's layered on top of some of the regulatory actions that they are taking, which is really, again, slowing down or completely stalling the scientific process."
The Trump administration has cut research funding grants to several universities, many of them Ivy League schools. It has also made cuts to programs in the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among others that offer grant opportunities to universities.
Since World War II, the U.S. government has leaned on universities to expand its research capabilities, leading to innovations in health, technology, economics and other disciplines.
Spreitzer, who has been an advocate for higher education for 20 years. In that time she said she has interacted with nearly every federal agency, said the partnership has advanced the interests of the government and delivered value to U.S. taxpayers.
"Right now we are at this historical inflection point where the federal government is rethinking their partnership with our institutions of higher education," she said. "It's been a very profitable and very important partnership that's helped the entire United States. Whether you're talking about new drugs or medical research or the innovative products that might be spun out and have created jobs."
The rethinking of the partnership between the government and universities goes beyond contracts and grants. It is also proposing a lower cap on its reimbursement to universities for indirect costs or facilities and administrative costs. These are overhead expenses that an institution has that are not related to specific projects, such as government-funded research.
Prior to the current Trump administration, the National Institutes of Health reimbursed an average of 27% to 28% of direct costs to universities to help cover indirect costs. These rates were negotiated with some institutions being reimbursed at rates more than 50%.
There has not been a cap on most reimbursements since Congress removed them in 1965.
In February, the National Institutes of Health announced a new policy to cap these reimbursements at 15%.
The American Council on Education filed a lawsuit seeking to block the proposed cap, warning that it would greatly disrupt research across the country.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs granted a preliminary injunction against the Department of Energy from instituting a rate cap policy. The injunction succeeds a temporary restraining order Burroughs granted against the administration, shielding all institutions of higher education from rate caps.
"It would have a huge impact on our institutions," Spreitzer said. "They've also made huge cuts in some of the fellowship programs. Whether it's the fellowship program for the next generation of NSF scientists or whether it's the Fulbright program -- those have all been suddenly stopped."