As the fall semester is poised
to begin, Wisconsin's major
research university, UW-Madison,
is grappling with the potential of
tens of millions of dollars of cuts
to federal funding, most of
it cuts to National Institutes
of Health research funding.
But the cuts span other disciplines
like money from the Department of
Energy, the National Science
Foundation, and the Department of
Defense.
What does this mean for the state's
flagship university?
We check in with the Senior
Associate Dean for Basic Research,
Biotechnology, and Graduate Studies
at the UW School of Medicine and
Public Health, John Audia.
And thanks very much for being here.
Thank you for hosting me.
So all told, what is the hit
to federal research funding at
UW-Madison as it stands now?
So we've experienced enormous delays
in a lot of funds that we were
expecting to arrive on campus
nationwide.
That amounts to about $5 billion
in shortfall in NIH funding
to go to research institutions.
We've been fortunate in some senses
in that many of our grants have come
through.
However, many more are sitting,
waiting, where there's an
expectation for months.
I personally even went through a
period of time where I waited on a
grant to be awarded for four months.
Beyond the time that I expected it
to start. This has enormous impacts
on our ability to fund our
research, to fund out people.
And luckily though, UW-Madison has
stood up bridging programs, which
have been phenomenal.
So our chancellor, Chancellor
Jennifer Mnuchin, has just
reached out and really enabled
us to continue to thrive, even
in an era where there's a lot
of uncertainty.
Where is this uncertainty being
felt most acute?
I would say it's in our larger
research programs, when there's
interruptions in funding to our
large grants,
this really affects a lot of
individuals.
And unfortunately, there has been
directives from the National
Institutes of Health to remove
certain language from the
work that we're doing, some of the
directions that we've been taking
historically in really
very important areas.
Those types of disruptions.
Lead to really enormous challenges
in ensuring that our people are
able to stay employed.
We have put a people first
mentality.
We want to ensure that the
folks that are currently working at
the university are able continue to
do so and pursue their lines of
research.
I know that one area that
people often focus on when they
talk about research at UW-Madison
is Alzheimer's and dementia
research.
How much federal funding is,
does that research get
and is that
at risk?
So right now, we bring in
over $100 million a
year in research funding from
National Institutes of Health and
other federal sources in support
of our work directed against
Alzheimer's disease, as well as
related dementias.
Currently, the grants that we have
in that area, the largest ones,
led by Dr. Sterling Johnson,
for example, a grant called Clarity,
which is hoping to identify
biomarkers for dementia.
This grant was funded on time,
fully funded.
Our Alzheimer's Disease Research
Center, its core grant,
was funded late, but
fully funded Many other
institutions across the nation have
not seen their funds come in
when they are expecting them.
We've been fortunate to this point,
however.
What is the guidance coming out of
NIH that puts some
of this or other research at risk?
So there's layers now of
additional review that
very little, it's quite opaque
to be honest.
We don't actually know who is
actually reviewing the grants after
the point the scientific review
process is done.
Those additional layers of review
that are being led by the
administration, whether it's within
the HHS Health
and Human Services or at NIH
specifically, we
really don't understand.
Why they exist, what value,
what purpose they serve, but what
they do do is cause delays
in those grants being funded
and the money being able to be
dispersed to the institution.
Is some of it they're looking at
research that goes to
disadvantaged populations?
Absolutely, and as I
think many of us know,
our disadvantaged populations are
often the most impacted
by various types of disease.
Alzheimer's disease is no different.
We see that Alzheimer's rates are
much higher in groups that are
suffering from economic
disadvantage, from environmental
disadvantage.
And when we have to remove
language related to
those areas.
It actually goes against what the
science is telling us by studying
what's happening in those
populations around the
state of Wisconsin.
Our rural populations, our urban
populations, that is absolutely
critical for us to be able
to meet the needs of everyone across
the entire globe, across the United
States.
Are cuts to indirect costs for
research operations happening?
So far, they haven't started.
There is sort of this idea that
this is coming in the future.
And there's huge concern.
We've seen, for example,
messaging from the National Science
Foundation, from the Department of
Defense, that are requiring
us to put in place
smaller amounts of indirect costs,
which funds the institution,
the actual fabric of the
university that allows this research
to be done.
I like to
equate it to the idea
of buying a steak at the
grocery store and bringing it home.
If you don't have the refrigerator
to store that steak, it's gonna
spoil. If you have the gas
that ultimately fuels the fire
to cook that steak it's not
gonna be anything you would wanna
eat.
And that's what the indirect costs
pay for. It's really the
infrastructure of the university
that allows the research to happen.
Not yet, we're really worried
about where things could go in the
future however.
I was going to ask, what do you
think the future holds for all of
this?
So there's been work happening at
a national level to develop
what's called a FAIR model for
to re-delivering those costs
that aren't the ones that go
directly to the research itself.
And I think this work has actually
been very important.
Our own Vice Chancellor
for Finance and Administration has
served on this group called
JAG. I can't remember the acronym.
But basically this group has come up
with a really FAIR Model, hence they
dubbed it FAIR.
That's gotten in front of
the Office of Management and Budget
at
the administration.
We've been trying to work with
our partners in the administration
to see the value of
what those costs actually enable
in terms of our ability to do
research.
So if some of this research this
year was delayed but eventually
dispersed, what about next year?
So a big concern is still that delta
of about $5 billion that
hasn't made it out of NIH.
Come the end of the NIH fiscal year,
which is the end September, if
those funds aren't dispersed,
they're very likely to be reverted
back to Treasury.
So those are dollars that become,
they were appropriated by Congress,
but not actually fulfilled.
That then happens, the worry is
the next budget, under a
continuing resolution, which we're
fully anticipating from the federal
government, They don't have a
directive. To spend the
same volume of what was appropriated
the prior year, and so the
amount of funding on the table goes
down.
That's going to make research
funding very difficult to achieve.
It's going result in smaller
grants potentially.
It's gonna result in fewer faculty
being funded and able to conduct
their really important work.
All right, we leave it there, John,
thanks very much.
Thank you for hosting me today.
It's all good.
Thank you.
Absolutely. So, I
didn't want to be indulgent
even.