The University of Central Florida laid off 57 employees at a renewable energy research center in Brevard County last week after the Trump administration cut federal grants that helped support it.
The state’s largest public university also recently laid off six people in its technology department and two at the UCF Arboretum, though those were not tied to the loss of federal funding.
After the cuts, the Florida Solar Energy Center, established in 1975 to advance research, development and education in solar energy, has just seven employees, said Courtney Gilmartin, a spokesperson for UCF.
The university laid off employees because of “shifting federal priorities and external funding for traditional energy programs declining sharply,” which made the program no longer financially viable, she said.
“UCF remains committed to aligning our research strengths with state and federal priorities. This transition positions the university to focus our efforts where they will have the greatest impact for Florida’s innovation economy and taxpayers,” Gilmartin wrote in an email.
The reduction at the FSEC comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has canceled or frozen federal grants that paid for research at universities across the United States.
As of July, UCF had lost almost $22 million in federal research grant funding, records show.
The Trump administration has targeted renewable energy research in particular, last month canceling more than $7.5 billion in grants across the country.
In its announcement about those cuts, the U.S. Department of Energy wrote the research “did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.”
The department did not provide a list of which projects lost funding, however, and UCF did not immediately respond to questions about what specific grant cuts led to the layoffs at its solar energy center.
The job cuts at the arboretum were an attempt to “operate efficiently in an environment where budgets are flat and costs are higher,” Gilmartin wrote. The technology cuts stemmed from a new chief information officer evaluating the department’s needs, she added.