Nearly a year into President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has cut between $6.9 billion and $8.2 billion in government-funded research grants for universities. 

The first cuts arose from battles with Harvard and Columbia University over alleged anti-semitism that the administration tied to protests in support of Palestinians on university campuses. 

The administration then moved to reduce research funding to universities all over the country, in an effort to curtail government spending to allow for further tax cuts. 

“There’s definitely been an impact on our funding, but it hasn’t been as dramatic as we all thought it would be,” said Sr. Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Education Corinne Lengsfeld. 

According to Lengsfeld, the University of Denver has lost $6.6 million in federal research funding this year as 21 grants were terminated. Of these 21, six were reinstated after revisions to become compliant with new federal standards by avoiding topics of green energy; social justice; and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

“We had to go through and look at the grant and then decide, are those core principles actually core to the outcome of the research?” Lengsfeld said. Often they could remove these principles and go forward with the research.

Many of these cuts were in the Psychology department, Lengsfeld said, as their research deals with more topics in social justice and DEI compared to other departments. 

Kateri McRae, chair of the department, stated that there were three main impacts of the recent changes. The first was a decrease in predictability. The Trump administration has reduced the number of employees in federal funding agencies, which makes it difficult to get in touch and understand what research will be terminated. 

The second impact that McRae outlined was the decrease in research that federal agencies have released. 

“It’s hard to say how much research we would have gotten,” McRae said. 

Finally, the department has had a significant amount of research terminated due to funding cuts. One study was looking into the factors that affect same-sex marriages and was terminated completely by the federal government.

“It was extremely well-defined research,” said McRae, emphasizing it was cut purely for its focus on the LGBTQ+ community. 

Though the research was valuable, McRae stated that there was no way for it to continue without federal funding. 

“There is no real work around,” said McRae. 

DU attracts many students by having R1 research status while still providing opportunities for undergraduate students to do research. However, R1 research institutions are required to have at least $50 million in annual research spending. 

DU fell above this threshold for the last two years, but $6.6 million in cuts would leave them short of that mark. 

“There are things that in the past we have not tracked or counted towards the count for that classification, that if we got a little bit too low, we gotta get our pencils out and start to find all the philanthropic money that went to research,” said Lengsfeld.  

Lengsfeld noted that DU has raised over $40,000 in “bridge funding” for grants that were terminated or experiencing difficulties with federal funding. 

“I think that organizations need to figure out how to reengage more vigorously with corporations and not be so reliant on federal funding,” Lengsfeld said. 

No matter how DU responds, the next few years of research will be an ever-changing landscape. 

“We’re smart, creative, great people that I think can overcome these challenges and move forward,” said Lengsfeld. “These next two years are going to be relearning how to do this in a new way.”