Universities want a deal in research funding battle with Trump

Politico

17 hours ago

Major research institutions command some of the highest rates in part because they have expensive and state-of-the-art research equipment and are located in areas with high utilities costs.
A federal district court judge in Boston blocked Trump's plan to cap the fees at 15 percent in March. The national average now is almost 30 percent. The case is now on appeal.
In the meantime, GOP senators such as Appropriations Chair Susan Collins of Maine and Alabama's Katie Britt have protested the administration's plan because it would hurt the public universities in their states. Collins noted that Congress has explicitly barred the administration from tinkering with the indirect cost system in spending legislation.
But even as schools were seeking relief in court and in Congress, a cadre of groups that lobby for them, including the Association of American Universities, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Association of Independent Research Institutes and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, was working out a compromise plan to offer Trump. Others in the crosshairs of Trump's bid to cut costs, such as hospitals and research institutes, are working with them.
'Those who say, 'Well, let's just wait and see, maybe the lawsuits will be fine.' No, there is change happening,' said Droegemeier, who has some cache in Trump's orbit because he led the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the president's first term.
'I can tell you for sure that [the White House Office of Management and Budget] is working on things. We're working on things. We're working together. But change is coming, and if people simply deny that they're fooling themselves — they'd better prepare for change one way or another.'
This week, Trump tried a new tactic to wrest indirect funding from top-tier universities by issuing an executive order calling for agencies to give preference to universities with lower indirect costs when issuing awards.
The university-led group announced this spring that it was working on a new model , one that was 'simple and easily explained,' and in a nod to the administration's priorities: 'efficient and transparent.'
The Financial Accountability in Research, or FAIR plan, would consist of two options for research organizations to recoup facilities and administrative expenses from the government. The first, a detailed accounting of indirect project costs, and the second, a shorter, simpler fixed percentage of a project's budget. (Think itemized deductions vs. the standard deduction on federal taxes.)
'The biggest difference is rather than having an indirect cost rate, which is negotiated across the entire university, this model calls for indirect costs to be estimated for every project,' Jeremy Berg, former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, an arm of the $48 billion grant-giving National Institutes of Health, told POLITICO.
A lobbying push
Debate over how much the government should pay for indirect costs has raged for decades.
Both former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama suggested capping facilities and administrative costs, to no avail.
In Trump's first term, he proposed a 10 percent cap on indirect costs — meaning a $100 grant would come with a maximum of an additional $10 for administration and facilities. Lawmakers stopped him by adding language to appropriations bills barring the change.
After the Trump administration announced the 15 percent cap in February, Droegemeier reached out to House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) to see if universities and Congress could work together on a compromise.