The suspension of NIH grant reviews, prompted by new restrictions from the Trump administration, has left academics in panic. Several health agencies, including the NIH, have been directed to cease public communication, compounding the chaos. Experts warn that the halt in grant reviews, impacting a multibillion-dollar pool of public funding, could lead to severe long-term consequences for medical research and immediate budgetary challenges for universities. This abrupt withdrawal of support raises concerns about the vulnerability of higher education amid ongoing political tensions.
I'd summarize it as: fuck. That's what one senior university administrator told me when I asked about the chaos that erupted at the National Institutes of Health this week.
This will halt science and devastate research budgets in universities, Jane Liebschutz, a medical doctor and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, posted on Bluesky.
The pause affects the distribution of a multibillion-dollar pool of public research money, and will have long-term effects on medicine and short-term effects on state, higher education and hospital budgets.
The fact that this support has been switched off so haphazardly, for reasons that remain unclear, suggests that higher ed will be profoundly vulnerable during the second Trump era.
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