Update on Federal Funding
Dear members of the Northwestern community,
As we communicated Tuesday evening, Northwestern was informed by members of the media that the federal government plans to freeze a significant portion of our federal funding.
Northwestern has not received any official notification from the federal government about a large-scale freeze or rationale for such a move. We have received more than 100 stop work orders this week for projects funded by the government — primarily impacting researchers in Feinberg, McCormick and Weinberg. The affected grants include research into wearable devices, robotics, nanotechnology, foreign military training, Parkinson’s disease and many other critical research programs supporting our nation.
These developments are deeply disturbing. They impact the critical research we perform every day, the lives of those who do it and those who benefit from it. They also cut to the core of what makes Northwestern one of the world’s greatest universities.
This situation is changing rapidly, but we are working quickly and deliberately to gather facts to help us understand and respond to this emerging crisis. We are in constant communication with our Board of Trustees, with administrative leaders across the University and with leaders at peer institutions and in the government.
We are developing options for how best to support our research enterprise, including the faculty and staff who make it possible. In doing this, we seek to balance our commitments to our community, the guiding principles we articulated last month and the University’s financial support for impactful research.
We will continue to provide updates as we are able, as we work to better understand the scope of the challenges in front of us.
Thank you for your dedication, your commitment and your contributions to Northwestern during these uncertain times.