UCSC recovers some funding cut by Trump, but research disruption roils campus

Earlier this year, the Trump administration’s federal funding cuts targeting universities resulted in about 40 terminated grants totaling approximately $30 million in losses at UC Santa Cruz. Those cuts covered a wide variety of research, from the development of diagnostics for pediatric tumors, a study of desalination plants in the Middle East and another that studied marine mammal safety in the proximity of heavy boating activity.

But in June, in at least two lawsuits, federal judges ordered the reversal of hundreds of grant terminations, saying that federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, had illegally canceled the grants. As a result, the judges’ rulings reinstated the majority of UCSC’s terminated grants, leaving about 10 grants still terminated for a loss of $4 to $5 million. 

University of California researchers are still fighting the administration’s ongoing attack on the university system. UC unions and faculty associations recently filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration and its $1.2 billion fine for UCLA, alleging that the federal government is coercing the UC system to adopt a conservative ideology and is violating UC employees’ freedoms of speech and due process rights. 

Vice Chancellor for Research John MacMillan told Lookout that the funding cuts have far-reaching effects that go beyond the UCSC staff supported by the federal dollars. 

“This has real implications for future treatments of disease. It has impacts on how we’re going to detect the next wildfire,” MacMillan said, adding the university is working to minimize the disruptions, including for the projects with reinstated funding. In some cases, MacMillan said, programs had to lay off employees when they lost funding – only to see the money reinstated months later. MacMillan pointed to the long-term disruption caused, including the difficulty of keeping teams together.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration started slashing federal funding to agencies that conduct research and that award research grants to colleges and universities, claiming that the work didn’t align with the government’s goals. President Donald Trump has continued cutting funds to universities – including about $500 million to UCLA – arguing it’s necessary for a range of reasons such as failures to protect students from antisemitism and for implementing diversity, equity and inclusion programs that Trump says unlawfully benefit certain students. 

The Trump administration is demanding $1.2 billion from UCLA to settle allegations of civil rights violations, and UC President James Milliken said in a Sept. 15 statement that the federal administration is “pursuing investigations and actions in various stages against all 10 campuses.” 

“This represents one of the gravest threats to the University of California in our 157-year history,” he said in the statement. “Losses of significant research and other federal funding would devastate UC and inflict real, long-term harm on our students, our faculty and staff, our patients, and all Californians. It would also end life-saving research from which all Americans benefit.” 

The UCSC cuts

UCSC’s MacMillan said the reasons given for the terminations varied slightly in each case, but they generally said that “the work isn’t in line with the priorities of the administration, or it is in violation of diversity, equity and inclusion directives.”

Of the approximately $4 to $5 million in grants that were terminated and have not been reinstated, MacMillan said the projects were awarded by several federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Education, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and NIH. That stands in contrast to the NIH grants, a majority of which have been reinstated, he said.

One NIH terminated project that wasn’t reinstated – for pediatric tumor diagnostics – has found new philanthropic funding to keep going. 

MacMillan said the research projects and programs that had funding temporarily terminated also underwent serious disruptions. Many of the affected programs were focused on research training for undergraduates, graduate students and post-baccalaureate students. One called PREP – Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program  – was funded by an NIH grant. 

He said four to five PREP participants chose to leave after the grant was terminated. 

“Many of those students, after the grant was terminated, decided to move on and try to pick the next thing that they were going to do in life,” MacMillan said. “So when the grant was reinstated four months later, most of those people had already moved on.” 

He said that placed the program in a difficult position of having to decide whether to try to fill the position again if there was a chance that it could be terminated again. 

“Is it fair to now go and hire new people to take those positions, have them move to Santa Cruz, only to say three months from now, that grant is now terminated?” he asked. “They’re having to make really hard decisions about, how do you move forward with uncertainty?”

Once the funding was reinstated for PREP, MacMillan said UCSC hired back one or two of the six participants, who understood the funding environment and the risk.  

MacMillan said “there is a lot at stake” as the federal government upends research funding at educational institutions like UCSC. 

“UC Santa Cruz will continue to do critical research that impacts the lives of Californians and people around the country,” he said. “The current situation makes that work harder. It doesn’t necessarily stop that work, but it makes it harder to move forward with.”

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