The dust has settled after sweeping budget cuts went into effect last month, and federal agencies have responded with how they’re going to implement them.
University of Minnesota Vice President for Research Brian Herman said University research will be largely unaffected this fiscal year, but the future is less certain.
Most federal research funding agencies have taken a 5.1 percent from the sequester. The National Institutes of Health — the University’s largest federal funding agency — will take this full cut, translating to $1.5 billion fewer research dollars this fiscal year.
Herman said his office has a number of programs and ideas it will implement over the next couple of years to help mitigate the effects of these cuts, many of which are already in place.
These programs include a “bridge program” to keep funding research, increased partnering with industry, reducing the faculty administrative burden and encouraging more collaborative research.
“We’re already doing a lot of things to try to support the University community on an ongoing basis,” he said, “… hopefully some will be earlier, but within the next six months or so these things will be formalized and then implemented.”
For more on how federal cuts are affecting University research, pick up an issue of Monday’s Daily.