{"id":37296,"date":"2025-11-18T06:16:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T06:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/37296\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T06:16:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T06:16:07","slug":"pitt-researchers-advocate-against-federal-funding-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/37296\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitt researchers advocate against federal funding cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pitt researchers continue to express uncertainty about the future of science with the impacts of federal funding cuts <\/a>on research in the past year.<\/p>\n

Amid a recent University agreement<\/a> to maintain its ancillary research reimbursement rate of 59%, researchers across Pennsylvania held an advocacy event to bring attention to the effects of cuts in the past year.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 7, 2025, university researchers and unions across Pennsylvania gathered at all seven of Senator Dave McCormick\u2019s state offices<\/a> to urge him to ensure student aid and research funding were protected in the federal budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ahead of the new fiscal year<\/a>, the federal budget and funding allocations were under negotiation, spurring researchers to highlight the effects of funding cuts on science so far. Locally, around three dozen researchers and union members assembled outside of McCormick\u2019s office<\/a> in Pittsburgh and spoke about their research and the impacts of funding cuts on their work.<\/p>\n

Pitt and the Department of Health and Human Services reached an agreement in September to maintain the University\u2019s ancillary research reimbursement rate at 59% through 2029.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is certainly good news for the University, but it does not prevent the government from making downward adjustments or changes to how indirect cost recovery works in the future,\u201d University spokesperson Jared Stonesifer said.<\/p>\n

Tyler Bickford, an English professor and unit president of the University of Pittsburgh Faculty Union, said the event was held to advocate for a continuation of federal funding and spread awareness of the risks cuts pose.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think there are real risks of cuts to life-saving research and also aid to students that ensures higher education is affordable,\u201d Bickford said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bickford highlighted the importance of university research, particularly its provision of Pennsylvania jobs and student educational opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cFederal funding is a key part of that ecosystem,\u201d Bickford said. \u201cWe want to make sure that our senator was hearing from his constituents and understanding how important these issues are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will Evans, an associate professor of communication sciences and disorders, is studying aphasia rehabilitation<\/a>. Evans spoke at the advocacy event about his research and the tangible impacts of federal funding cuts on work like his.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust imagine one day, all at once, you lose the ability to communicate to the people you care about. That\u2019s what millions of people [with aphasia] living in the U.S. are up against,\u201d Evans said. \u201cThis is just one example of the value of research for society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evans emphasized the importance of advocacy events in ensuring the public understands the threat that cuts pose to diminishing the ability to find solutions for diseases.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [the event] was thoughtful, respectful and really encouraging that faculty from different universities and areas are coming together from different unions to talk about how important what we do is,\u201d Evans said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to change lives, and we need to do a better job of talking about the impact of what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Research support has been bipartisan both currently and historically, according to Jeremy Berg, professor of computational and systems biology in the School of Medicine and former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the National Institutes of Health. Berg studies molecular biophysics and the analysis of clinical trials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth Republicans and Democrats have academic institutions in their states, and they recognize how important federal funding is to their constituents and economies in their areas and to health, innovation and advancement,\u201d Berg said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Berg highlighted the success of the model of partnership between federal government funding and university research. The model<\/a>, which dates back to the late 1940s, was designed so federal funding would be provided to universities for any important research, and then such information would be available to the government or private sectors when needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis model of partnership has been tremendously productive and is one of the reasons why the United States has been the dominant player in science,\u201d Berg said. \u201cIt\u2019s been responsible for many, many millions of jobs and probably trillions of dollars in economic output.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Berg noted that this partnership depended on \u201ca huge amount of trust\u201d between the government and higher educational institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last 10 months, grants were terminated for pretty arbitrary political reasons by processes that were illegal, and the indirect cost rate was changed as well, which led to a lot of uncertainty and distrust now,\u201d Berg said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Berg said universities are unable to plan ahead on research focuses due to funding uncertainty, increasing inefficiency in scientific advancement.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is colored with uncertainty now. Trust is something that takes a long time to build, but is pretty easy to destroy and hard to get back,\u201d Berg said.<\/p>\n

According to Sarah Ross, a professor of neurobiology who studies the neural circuit basis for pain, funding cuts are greatly impacting the progress of the next generation of scientists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cScience is an extremely long training period, and even with just a few years without funding, graduate students and postdocs can\u2019t find positions to support them in that long process,\u201d Ross said. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole generation of scientists that are in jeopardy of being lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ross also said the federal government seemed to be \u201cscaring away international [research] applicants\u201d by making it difficult for international students<\/a> to come to the U.S., further harming the future of research.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the U.S. has traditionally done is to attract the best and brightest to the United States. They train, make discoveries and start businesses here, and that\u2019s what made the U.S. one of the top countries in the world for innovation and discovery,\u201d Ross said. \u201cThe Trump Administration is doing the very opposite by scaring away top talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ross expressed that many existing and prospective scientists felt frightened and uncertain about the future of science and research.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s discouraging that the Trump Administration has been unsupportive of science,\u201d Ross said. \u201cIn the guise of saving money, they are making cuts that are really hurting science and innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ross said the U.S. runs the risk of being overtaken by other countries in many research domains by cutting funding nationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the long term, instead of being a world leader, I think we\u2019ve already lost our leadership position, and this will take decades to rebuild, if it\u2019s even possible,\u201d Ross said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pitt researchers continue to express uncertainty about the future of science with the impacts of federal funding cuts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3145,4124,22906,73,75,74,1164],"class_list":{"0":"post-37296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-dave-mccormick","9":"tag-federal-funding","10":"tag-funding-cuts","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","13":"tag-pittsburgh-news","14":"tag-research"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}