REDD Update
Dear Colleagues,
The new year is off to an exciting start as we capped off January with the annual Celebration of Excellence in Research and Innovation event, held on the 23rd. This was the second in what I hope will be many years of honoring the best and brightest of research and innovation accomplishments during the January meeting of our Board of Trustees. The breadth and depth of research at UW is simply astounding for a university of our size, and our aim is to continue growing the depth, breadth and impacts of our research enterprise. Congratulations to those recognized for their work as innovators as well as the researchers feted at this event! During the celebration we premiered a video about how “Cowboys investigate, explore, and innovate,” which will see continued use as a tool to convey the importance of research to UW student experiences and success. You can view this terrific video here.
The REDD Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Report was submitted to the Board of Trustees last month, and I encourage all of you to read and see the measures of our progress. You can download it from the home page of the REDD website, or by clicking here. My thanks and gratitude go to the many people engaged in making the University of Wyoming’s research enterprise so successful.
Congratulations to the faculty who recently received seed grants for their research projects involving artificial intelligence (see the story here). These are extremely important efforts that will help raise UW’s profile with this profoundly impactful technology that is permeating virtually every corner of our society. For more information on UW’s AI efforts there is a new web page, www.uwyo.edu/ai4wy, that will continue to evolve as we work to keep pace with AI opportunities.
We have entered February with uncertainty and confusion as we, along with all other research universities in the U.S., navigate Trump Administration executive orders and policy changes that potentially impact federal funding. Our office of Pre-Award Services is keeping a close watch on developments and their effects on proposals and current awards. We have created a valuable web page we’re maintaining to provide the latest updates and information about this evolving situation, including guidance on what actions to take and relevant links to NSF, NIH, NASA and more. Bear with us as we adapt to this situation that has rapidly changed on a daily basis at times and may continue to do so into the foreseeable future.
Please take note of a major recent change in the NIH’s new guidance, which limits its indirect costs to 15 percent on new and existing grants (https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-068.html). For context, it’s important to keep in mind that the cost of research at a university generally involves two parts: direct costs and indirect costs. Direct costs can be assigned to specific projects (e.g. graduate students working on a project, or for equipment needed solely for a project). In contrast, many other costs such as research space, utilities, facilities, and services (e.g., research development, proposal processing, compliance, accounting, etc.) are difficult to assign to specific projects and are referred to as indirect costs. Universities negotiate the rate of indirect costs with federal agencies and use that rate for all their research grants unless the sponsor restricts the rate to a lower limit. Indirect costs are critical for maintaining the research infrastructure and services that are necessary for universities to support research by its faculty, staff, and students. At UW, indirect costs are the primary source of funding for the Office of Sponsored Programs and all service units in REDD. They also are used for various seed grants, cost share, and REDD portion of start-up costs.
This change at NIH, which is the largest federal agency that supports university-based research, will be detrimental to the health of U.S. leadership in science and technology overall, not just in health sciences. If other federal agencies adopt a similar policy, research enterprises at US universities are certain to be permanently damaged. Several states and associations (including APLU, which represents UW) have filed suits against NIH. Although temporary pauses have been ordered, we are awaiting the final decision by the courts. A loss of indirect costs recovered from NIH and other federal agencies will reduce our budget by several million dollars and severely limit our services and ability to support robust growth in research. Please know that UW leaders are deeply concerned and working hard to understand these impacts and communicate these consequences to our federal delegation.
We are committed to support you through these turbulent times, which have been unfortunately more severe during this transition than during a typical change of White House administrations. UW leaders are also working hard to communicate to you any potentially crippling impacts of federal budget cuts as well as policy changes that adversely impact the UW’s research and its connection to the economic prosperity in Wyoming. We have organized a session on Wednesday, February 12 at 11:00 AM in Classroom Building Room 310 to understand and potentially address your questions about federal funding impacts.
Let’s all stay optimistic; we are in this together!
Best,
Parag