Julie Libarkin is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
One semester into Donald Trump’s presidency, the earth and environmental studies professor has had two grants terminated by the federal government. And now, she’s worried about the futures of her other projects.
"I feel it physically in my body," Libarkin said. "Waiting for the next shoe to drop, for my next grant to get terminated … it is its own form of harm."
Libarkin, who is also the associate dean of the Environmental Science and Policy Program, is one of the many researchers whose work is in limbo as widespread cuts to federally funded research grants severely impact university communities across the country. The researchers she works alongside at Michigan State University are facing the same thing.
The past four months have caused Libarkin to question her future in research.
“I am a very senior researcher in this field… I don't know that I want to keep doing this kind of work because I've been traumatized,” Libarkin said. “I feel like harm has been done for the people that I am supposed to be mentoring into new careers.”
Since the Trump administration took office in January, MSU has had grants terminated, suspended or in limbo due to cuts from the following federal agencies:
The university’s best estimate for expected total loss for terminated grants is $82 million, with additional losses from grants that are suspended, said Vice President of Research and Innovation Doug Gage.
The collective loss is the result of various executive actions that have called for reductions in funding for foreign aid, grants related to DEI, and other federal funding.
The first impacted agencies were USAID and NIH. Thus far, MSU’s USAID research has faced the most significant losses with the value of terminated grants totalling $23 million, Gage said.
With NIH funding, there are still a lot of uncertainties. There have been some grant terminations within the agency, but most of the NIH funded grants on campus remain in limbo as departments within the NIH have been shut down and meetings for grant renewal and review have been postponed.
The College of Human Medicine has over 100 principal investigators whose research has been delayed due to delays in funding decisions, said Dean of the College of Human Medicine Aron Sousa. The funding delays mean that faculty jobs could be on the line because there is no funding to maintain certain positions.
“Everything is just so inefficient and so poorly run that we might be in a situation where we could lay off or lose important researchers from our team,” Sousa said.
This semester has been defined by funding freezes, indiscriminate terminations and lawsuits all amounting to sweeping uncertainties. Some terminations remain uncontested by the university, but MSU has joined and expressed support for two lawsuits against the administration’s proposed cuts to indirect costs for Department of Energy funded research and NIH funded research, respectively.
“We have been participating in some of the legal challenges to some of the rules where we think it’s appropriate for the university to do so, and otherwise we’re waiting to see like everyone else,” Gage said.
Researchers grapple with emotional toll
The uncertainty and loss has taken root throughout the university from the College of Human Medicine to the College of Arts and Letters. At the College of Human Medicine, faculty and staff lie in wait for funding that may not come or grapple with cuts to their funding.
“People are anxious and worried and it’s painful,” Sousa said. “Some of these faculty have teams that they have worked…on, funded projects together for more than 20 years.”
Much of Libarkin’s work is focused on supporting postdoctoral researchers and science education research. The recent cuts and suspensions have been deeply traumatic for her and for the students and postdoc researchers that she mentors, Libarkin said.
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“They did the labor, they did what they were supposed to do,” she said. “They played by the rules and then the rules were changed.”
These impacts expand beyond STEM research to the humanities grants that have also been terminated. The NEH recently terminated 10 grants at MSU alongside hundreds of others across the country. Much of the work that this impacted was the preservation and digitization of history.
Matrix, MSU’s Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, lost seven grants to the NEH cuts. Many online databases that document and digitize historical materials will be lost, and the buildings that preserve the physical artifacts will lose funding too.
Director of Matrix Dean Rehberger called these cuts “cultural obliteration.”
“In a sense it’s the burning of history because you’re basically leaving it to deteriorate with no clear plan that this is going to be brought back,” Rehberger said.
Many researchers are holding out some form of hope that funding will return or alternative forms of funding will be found, but finding funding is an arduous process. The longer projects go without funding, the more that the work will be impacted.
“Work is very time and relationship dependent, and so I know the work can't continue (without funding),” Libarkin told The State News in February. “You have to have human beings interacting with other human beings to do the work, so it will stop.”
Libarkin is appealing the terminations of her grants. But engaging in the appeal process while having to grapple with closing down years worth of work and mentorship has been emotionally and physically traumatic, she said.
In the humanities in particular, funding is already hard to come by with grants often highly competitive and limited, Rehberger said. While he is trying to remain hopeful, it is getting harder.
“Am I confident that we'll be able to go on and do more work and continue what we do? I have to be,” Rehberger said. “You know, there's nothing else I can do, but I don't think it's going to happen.”
In addition to the impacts that these cuts have had on the researchers themselves, researchers say the communities and environments that benefit from the work will also be harmed.
NSF grant terminations have primarily focused on those relating to DEI, meaning community engaged research has been targeted. Researchers often collaborate with community organizations and individuals when engaging in this work; Libarkin said these relationships will be harmed due to the sudden cuts.
“I feel like getting rid of the kind of research that they're getting rid of, the harm to current communities and people and to multiple future generations is going to be written in stone,” she said.
Administrative concerns, finding solutions
There are also concerns that the university or specific researchers and their work will be targeted. Since the Trump administration has taken office, it has targeted Columbia University for allowing “illegal protests” by cutting $400 million worth of federally funded grants and contracts. It has also targeted the University of Pennsylvania with $175 million in funding cuts due to the university allowing transgender athletes to participate in sports.
The targeted cuts appear to have had a chilling effect on faculty and administrators at MSU. Over the course of the semester, MSU researchers have declined requests to be interviewed by The State News, citing fears of retaliation and possible consequences to their research. Gage himself expressed concern about how he was framing recent cuts.
“We don't want to draw attention to the feds to say that we're complaining about these things, and we're sort of working our way through that,” Gage said.
In order to bridge the gap until funding decisions are made, the College of Human Medicine has unrestricted philanthropic funds it is planning to use to support researchers whose work seems like it will be funded, Sousa said. But that funding is delayed, he added, because it will be carried out through a request and review process where researchers will be able to request funding from the college.
MSU has enacted a similar plan, with President Kevin Guskiewicz announcing in April that the university would be withdrawing $15 million from a restricted endowment in order to fund research over the next three years.
No decisions have been made on how this funding will specifically be allocated, and $5 million a year will not be enough to make up for the lost funds, Gage said.
Amid the avalanche of terminations and suspensions, Gage said the university is doing its best to support faculty and advocate for the continued funding of research. Some faculty members are receiving different positions so that they can continue to work on campus, he said. But there are also concerns that, if cuts continue to pile up, faculty will leave.
“We expect that other countries are going to try to recruit our best talent, and that’s incredibly destructive for our future,” Gage said. “... It diminishes the value of what we could do at MSU or in the United States to really ensure our future success.”
This has been a part of the argument that Gage and other administrators have brought to their conversations in Washington DC with members of Congress and their staffers.
The conversations are a way for members of the university to educate congressional representatives and their staffers about why research at MSU is in the national interest, Gage said. No one has told Gage that they have changed their minds, but he said they have made their argument effectively.
“We believe the best way is to make sure they understand the importance to their own districts and to their state of what research universities do…both through producing ideas and producing talent to work in industries in the state as well,” Gage said.
