The National Institutes of Health’s announcement in late February that it would cap indirect research funding at 15 percent sent universities across the nation into a panic. Emails obtained by The Chronicle via a public-records request offer a glimpse into how one research-intensive institution reacted in the immediate aftermath of the unexpected news — with confusion, concern, and at times, a sense of powerlessness.
Asked by a faculty member what he and his peers could do to help, the University of Iowa’s interim vice president for research suggested only “acting as a private citizen to call our legislators and tell them what a bad idea this is (from your own phone or using your own email).” The campus’s location in a solidly red state hindered it from fighting the policy change, Lois J. Geist seemed to imply in her reply. “Being located where we are we have limited ability to publicly fight this as faculty or as an institution.”
While the funding cap is frozen pending a federal judge’s ruling, the messages exchanged between Geist and other top officials at the University of Iowa provide a rare and revealing glimpse into internal conversations on a campus facing millions in cuts — and clear incentives to stay quiet. (Geist and one of those officials, through a university spokesperson, declined an interview. Four others did not respond to requests for comment.)
‘Tone It Down’
Within hours of the NIH’s announcement, which came late on the afternoon of Friday, February 7, a flurry of emails among Iowa administrators had commenced. The cap, an Iowa associate vice president for research predicted Friday night, “is going to have a significant effect on us (and everyone else).” By early the following morning, efforts were underway to gauge just how significant it would be. A manager in the division of sponsored programs shared a “back-of-the-envelope calculation” that estimated an average annual budget gap of $45 million, based on Iowa’s current reimbursement rate of 55.5 percent for indirect costs.(Often referred to as “facilities and administrative” costs, indirect costs account for money that institutions spend on research but that isn’t tied to a specific grant or project, such as facilities, equipment, and staff expenses.)
While the director of Iowa’s grant-accounting office worked through the weekend on producing more precise figures, others discussed the university’s public response. Peter S. Matthes, vice president for external relations and senior adviser to the president, proposed wording for an update on the webpage where the university posts federal-policy news.
“Overall, the federal transition continues to be a rapidly changing environment,” read the update, which was soon posted under Geist’s name. It said the university was working with organizations like the Association of American Universities and Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities to “monitor and interpret” the Trump administration’s policy changes. Iowa, it promised, was “actively engaging with our federal delegation as well to ensure they understand the profound impact this change would have.”
Administrators also kept tabs on how their colleagues at other institutions were responding, both through email chains (the listserv of provosts in the Big Ten Academic Alliance, Iowa Provost Kevin C. Kregel noted, “is very active!”) and by tracking their public statements. Jennifer Lassner, an associate vice president for research, forwarded a link to a message from the University of Michigan as a “communication example"; in that memo, Arthur Lupia, Michigan’s interim vice president for research and innovation, stressed that the at-risk funding was used to conduct “vital research that saves lives, creates jobs, enhances national security, and improves quality of life for people in every part of our state and across the nation.”
The then-director of strategic communications in Geist’s office responded approvingly — “nice message!” she said of the Lupia memo — and suggested using it as a model for one Geist could send to the campus. The federal-update post, she noted, “is sort of passive — folks will have to go looking for it.” Geist said she was “fine” with issuing a statement, but added: “We will need to tone it down a bit.”
While Michigan and Iowa list one another as peer institutions and share membership in the Big Ten and an R1 designation, their home states operate under opposite political circumstances: Michigan is run by a Democratic trifecta, but Republicans control both houses of the Hawkeye State’s government as well as its governor’s office. Michigan also stands to lose about three and a half times as much as Iowa does under the 15-percent indirect-cost cap, according to a Chronicle analysis.
Indeed, the message Geist sent the afternoon of Monday, February 10 — approximately 72 hours after the NIH announced its policy — was more circumspect than Lupia’s, referring to “high-impact research” that “has tangible benefits for the lives of Iowans” and promising that “we recognize the urgency of the situation and are working to assess potential impacts at the college, department, lab, and investigator level.”
‘We Need the Foundations’
In her message, Geist said that “until we have more clarity,” Iowa would not submit new NIH grant applications and advised researchers “exert extra caution and defer starting new activities.” The university, she wrote, would also avoid hiring graduate research assistants whose salaries hadn’t already been budgeted as a direct cost on a funded project. Within a half hour, at least five faculty members had replied, expressing concern and asking questions. Among them was the faculty member whom Geist told that the university would have “limited ability to publicly fight this.” In response to another email, Geist said that the university would not be joining the lawsuit that 22 states — all led by Democratic attorneys general — brought against the NIH to stop the cap.
A third faculty member asked Geist to share concrete numbers to “make these impacts quantifiable.” Turning to an analysis prepared by Maria H. Soliman, the director of Iowa’s grant-accounting office, Geist told him the university would be on the hook for about $50 million. Beyond that, she said, Iowa would “lose grants and the ability to hire people on those grants because the amount of available money will be inadequate.” She also indicated the university would likely rely on outside support: “We need the foundations to weigh in to stop this as it will also impact our ability to do their research.” (The private sector has since faced its own troubles trying to offer patchwork funding.)
A federal judge in April issued a permanent injunction against the 15-percent cap, which the NIH is appealing. Meanwhile, a cohort of organizations that represent research universities has sketched out two alternatives, STAT reported last week; one would vary indirect-cost rates by institution and grant type, and the other would require each grant proposal to list its indirect costs as line items.
Andy Thomason, assistant managing editor at The Chronicle, contributed reporting.
