**This article has been updated.**

 

The National Institutes of Health awards funding to thousands of research institutions in the country and around the world. Today, that funding, which totals over $35 billion annually, is facing an uncertain fate in the courts over a battle against the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Within 90 days of inauguration, the Trump administration has made continued efforts to completely overhaul the way university research is funded. Life-saving medical research and over 10,000 patients are hoping for the best and making plans for the worst due to these widespread cost-cutting initiatives — and that’s just at the University of Illinois.

Chancellor Robert Jones called this a “major crisis,” “top concern” and the “most disruptive entity” in the University’s 158-year history during his remarks at a University Senate meeting in February.

In March, UI System President Timothy Killeen sent a letter to Illinois senators and representatives expressing his “grave concern” over the loss of system funding and its impacts on the University, including the University of Illinois at Chicagoʼs School of Public Health.

“Whether it’s the Cancer Center or any other department, the impact is the same: It will greatly hinder our ability to do research,” said Cancer Center at Illinois Director Rohit Bhargava.

All of this comes from one proposed change: decreasing the NIH’s indirect cost rate cap for research at universities from a previously negotiated percentage to a blanket 15%.

NIH funding for university research across the nation is split into two categories: direct and indirect. Direct funding covers costs like research projects or instructional activities, as well as equipment and supplies. Indirect costs cover facilities operation and maintenance costs, depreciation and administrative expenses.

When the NIH funds a project, they supply an agreed amount towards the cost of the research itself. This is then followed by an extra payment towards indirect costs at a percentage of the direct costs, which is decided after negotiations between the federal government and the university.

For example, if an NIH grant was for $100 of direct costs, and this researcher worked at a university where the current indirect cost rate cap is 60%, the researcher could request up to an additional $60 dollars for indirect cost funding from the NIH, maxing out at $160 in total funding. According to the NIH, the average indirect cost rate granted is about 28%.

After the government’s initial push for a blanket 15% rate of indirect cost coverage on Feb. 7, a coalition of 22 states, including Illinois, sued. On March 5, a judge sided with the coalition of states and agreed to temporarily block the change.

In their initial lawsuit against the NIH, Illinois said the UI System was granted over $325 million in NIH funds in fiscal year 2024. Those funds are said to be needed for a wide variety of projects, including life-saving medical research.

President Donald Trump’s plans to slash the NIHʼs indirect cost rate cap to 15% are estimated to lead to a $67 million annual deficit for the University, which has previously negotiated indirect funding with the government at 58.6% of direct funding costs. The NIH stated on X that the rate change would save the agency more than $4 billion annually.

“These rates are approved with the understanding that this is what it costs to do research,” Bhargava said. “If that is suddenly changed unilaterally overnight, as you can imagine, it really impacts our ability to do the research … that was not the cost that the government itself had evaluated and agreed to, right?”

In the UI System, indirect funds from the NIH go towards “laboratories, high-speed data processing, hazardous waste disposal, regulatory compliance staff, patient safety protocols, maintenance, and basic administrative support,” the lawsuit states.

The University is already feeling the effects of these new funding changes. In January, the Trump administration enacted a funding freeze, which led to the closure of the Soybean Innovation Lab and the dismissal of 30 employees. At UIC, a 30-year study on patients treated for HIV infection has been terminated, according to Killeen’s letter.

Many Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winners from the United States are supported, at least partly, by NIH funds. Because the United States sets a high standard for further research and development in medicine, not supplying the right resources will have deep consequences, Bhargava said.

“I think they will consider things carefully and support cancer research fully as we go forward,” Bhargava said. “It’s important to the public and its demonstrated impact in saving lives over the last few decades is quite unquestionable.”

The Cancer Center has consistently shown a strong focus on improving the diagnosis and detection of cancer. If NIH cuts funding to the University, the time it would take to develop more advanced technology would be much longer.

“Stopping those projects means that the technologies that we have at our disposal cannot progress now to actually being into human trials and having (an) impact in humans,” Bhargava said. “It takes a certain amount of time — just pausing that research means that you’re delayed for at least that amount of time.”

This delay in progress is not limited to the Cancer Center — it will affect research campuswide. In FY 2024, the University spent a total $1.44 billion on research, of which $812 million, or roughly 56%, came from federal grants.

“The indirect cost thing … will affect all kinds of research across the campus because you know those moneys are very critical to pay for just simply operating the buildings that the research is conducted in,” Bhargava said. “If you don’t have the money and no place to do your research, it’s very hard to make progress.”

 

CORRECTION: April 1, 4:30 p.m. — A previous version of this article stated the indirect cost rate cap at the University was 60%; the actual cap is 58.6%. The previous version also did not make explicit that the indirect cost rate cap is not guaranteed for all grants. Grant requesters can request up to, but not beyond, the indirect cost rate cap on federal grant applications.

 

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