Guidance for Hopkins Researchers

Our bond at a moment of challenge

Dear Johns Hopkins Community:

Johns Hopkins holds a particular place in the firmament of American, indeed, international higher education. Founded in the nation’s centennial year, Johns Hopkins became America’s first research university. A place dedicated to the creation of new knowledge and to the dissemination of that knowledge to our students and the world beyond.

In the ensuing nearly 150 years, we have not wavered from our foundational commitment to the research ideal. Research is our hallmark, and its essential instruments—freedom of inquiry and expression, academic excellence, marshaling of evidence, rigorous and open debate, and an embrace of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints—form our core values.

Critical to our success has been our more than eight-decade partnership with the federal government. The funds allocated by the federal government on a competitive, meritocratic basis to us and other American research universities have extended and improved the quality of human life, driven innovation, educated the next generation, created new industries and jobs, ensured the safety of the nation, and fueled the remarkable success and productivity of the American economy.

For this reason, the unprecedented challenges and pointed uncertainties of the current moment for research universities are perplexing and distressing. Over the past six weeks, we have experienced a fast and far-reaching cascade of executive orders and agency actions affecting higher education and federally sponsored research. What began as stop work orders or pauses in grant funding allocations has morphed into cancellations and terminations. Grant reviews at various agencies have been suspended, which means that grant applications submitted by our colleagues are not being evaluated or recommended for funding in a timely fashion. We anticipate that in the coming months we will see other areas where federal actions may result in a significant reduction in research work, though at this time, we are not certain of their scope and magnitude.

Because of our researchers’ extraordinary success in competing year after year for merit-based grants and contracts, we are, more than any other American university, deeply tethered to the compact between our sector and the federal government. Last year, for instance, nearly 50% of our total incoming funds was derived from research conducted on behalf of the federal government. The breadth and depth of this historic relationship means that cuts to federal research will affect research faculty, students, and staff and will ripple through our university.

Given what we are seeing, it is necessary to plan for challenges ahead. We are, as always, in this together, and we will need a systemwide approach to address whatever systemwide shocks we and our university peers may sustain.

As we shared with you previously, Johns Hopkins is participating in litigation aimed at halting cuts to existing NIH grants. While we are awaiting the disposition of that case, we will continue to advocate to our elected representatives for the tremendous impact of the longstanding research partnership between universities and the federal government, and for the principles and values undergirding our mission.

However, at this time, we have little choice but to reduce some of our work in response to the slowing and stopping of grants and to adjust to an evolving legal landscape. There are difficult moments before us, with impacts to budgets, personnel, and programs. Some will take time to fully understand and address; others will happen more quickly.

For our colleagues involved with medical and public health work around the globe, the unexpected stoppage of foreign aid funds has resulted in the suspension and now termination of most of our USAID grant portfolio at Jhpiego, the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Communication Programs, and the School of Medicine, which totals more than $800 million. Because of these funding terminations, we are in the process of winding down USAID grant-related activities in Baltimore and internationally, including impactful work to provide maternal and infant care, prevent the spread of diseases, and provide clean drinking water.

In response to these developments and other challenges on the horizon, we are taking thoughtful steps to reduce expenses and to budget prudently, while avoiding any precipitous actions. Our finance team is working closely with deans and divisional budget officers to develop various scenarios for potential funding reductions and to assess the effects on all aspects of our operations. Our aim is to focus on our mission, to double and re-double our commitment to excellence, to be thoughtful and transparent in our planning and budgeting, and to consult with our shared governance bodies. We will communicate more with you as these contingency planning efforts develop.

We are taking a similar approach to understanding other administration directives, including those involving diversity, equity, and inclusion. At Hopkins, we have long sought to model the best of a vibrant pluralist community. We aspire to be a place that fiercely opposes discrimination, supports equality of opportunity, and welcomes diverse people, perspectives, and thought as essential to the effective discharge of our truth-seeking function.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in SFFA v. Harvard and other legal precedents, we believe the law is clear in supporting the pursuit of this pluralistic ideal, and in protecting the exercise of free speech and academic freedom in classrooms, curricula, and scholarly inquiry. The laws and regulations that protect against discrimination of any kind are also clear, and we are scrupulous in following them for the benefit of every member of our community. After the SFFA decision, we undertook a review of our current policies and programs, including our admissions processes, and made modifications to ensure compliance with the court’s decision. Our Office of General Counsel will continue to advise us regarding any further adjustments needed to ensure the constitutionality of our activities.

As we have been in the past, we are resolute in our commitment to facing the challenges before us together as one university. We will continue to advocate vigorously and passionately for the importance of our community’s work, to protect the flame of rational inquiry and debate that burns so brightly here at Hopkins, and to be guided by our mission and the excellence, conviction, and humanity of each of you.

This ethos has carried us through daunting challenges of the past. Time and again, we have met the moment, sought new opportunities, and charted our course forward with determination and vision. We will do so again, and as we enter our 150th year, this must be our solemn pledge and commitment to one another.

Sincerely,

Ron Daniels

Our essential research partnership with the NIH

Dear Johns Hopkins Community:

We are writing today to inform you that Johns Hopkins University has joined the Association of American Universities (AAU), the American Council on Education (ACE), the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU), and 12 of our peer research universities in filing a lawsuit in federal court to block deep and devastating cuts to National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding that were announced on Friday evening. We learned this evening that in a separate, but similar case against the NIH, a temporary restraining order was granted in 22 states, including Maryland. Barring this judicial intervention, an immediate cut to the reimbursement of NIH’s share of costs associated with our research would have taken effect today.

These abrupt and sweeping cuts in NIH funding pose an extraordinary challenge to the important and lifesaving work of our faculty, staff, and students at Johns Hopkins. They jeopardize the longstanding and remarkable research partnership that was forged between the federal government and higher education at the conclusion of WWII, and put at risk the future of the American research enterprise as a whole.

The particular category of funds that is being targeted for dramatic cuts are referred to as indirect costs or F&A (facilities and administration). Indirect costs include equipment and instrumentation, laboratories, safety measures, IT infrastructure, and expert personnel who support research. These funds quite literally keep the lights on, ensure that high-powered computing systems can crunch data, and allow our staff to maintain clean, safe, and efficient labs. For decades, the NIH has reimbursed us for a portion of these research costs, based on a preset and agreed-upon contractual rate.

Given that these costs are an essential part of the research enterprise, dramatic cuts to the reimbursement formula cannot help but force corresponding cuts to research. It is that simple.

We could point to any number of examples of how these dramatic cuts will impact our research and patient care mission, but let us offer just one: NIH funding supports approximately 600 current and ongoing clinical trials at Johns Hopkins. This includes open clinical trials in cancer, pediatrics and children’s health, heart and vascular studies, and the aging brain, among many others. The NIH funding cut endangers these trials and many more like them into the future. And these trial participants are our patients. The care, treatments, and medical breakthroughs provided to them and their families are not “overhead” – they offer meaningful hope and scientific expertise, often when it’s needed most. They are the lifeblood of the advanced care that draws patients from across the country and around the world to Johns Hopkins. Many of them come to us with life threatening conditions or diseases that have failed to respond to treatment elsewhere. They come to us because of our commitment to connecting our research with the very best clinical care.

This is why we joined the suit filed today by the AAU.

At Johns Hopkins we have long relied on and planned for the future based on that federal funding commitment, as well as our faculty members’ exceptional success in the highly competitive and rigorous NIH peer review process. We fully understand the responsibility placed on us to uphold the public trust and serve as thoughtful stewards of these funds. But the fact is that if the NIH stops funding its share of these costs, much of this important research will be jeopardized.

We know that this news out of NIH, along with other recent or anticipated impacts on areas of our work, has caused tremendous anxiety among our faculty, staff and students. Our offices of the General Counsel and Finance and Administration, along with university and divisional leadership, have been working at a breakneck pace and with great determination to make the case for the important work you do and to understand and prepare for the serious financial impacts of this cut.

Your work is at the heart of the compact between America’s research universities and our government, in service to our fellow citizens and the nation. We will continue to advocate for and support your exceptional work, and to preserve the excellence and mission of our university.

We will communicate with the university community as this situation evolves and share information through your divisions, JHURA, ORA, and the Guidance for Researchers website.

Thank you for the work you do to advance human understanding and keep our loved ones and the patients and families we serve healthy and safe.

Sincerely,

Ron Daniels
President

Theodore L. DeWeese, M.D.
Dean of the Medical Faculty
CEO, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Our Johns Hopkins research enterprise

Dear Johns Hopkins Community:

As America’s first research university, Johns Hopkins has had a longstanding and highly productive partnership with our federal government, forged in the embers of WWII when Vannevar Bush – an MIT engineering professor and the renowned leader of wartime R&D who went on to found the National Science Foundation – was called upon to redeploy the American research enterprise for “the improvement of the national health, the creation of new enterprises bringing jobs, and the betterment of the national standard of living.”

In the ensuing years, universities all across America answered that call, producing research and discoveries that have transformed our understanding of the possible – from the invention of radar systems to GPS, from modern genetics to quantum mechanics, from the development of the pacemaker to cancer immunotherapy. University-based research, supported by the federal government, has time and again advanced American ingenuity and competitiveness and improved the human condition at home and across the globe.

Now, as a new administration arrives in Washington, research universities are being called upon to navigate a period of substantial change, and we are reminded that this federal partnership is not to be taken lightly.

In just the past two weeks, we have seen numerous executive orders, agency directives, and other federal actions that directly affect our university’s research mission. These actions and communications signal changes in federal policy with regard to foreign aid, patient care, public health, diversity, gender, and immigration, and they coincide with unexpected pauses in grant payments from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), National Science Foundation (NSF), and National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The pace and scope of this transition is intense and presents a challenge for our university community, as it does for all of the American research enterprise.

We are closely monitoring the evolving federal landscape and collaborating closely with divisional leaders to assess and prepare for the implications of these changes across the full range of disciplines and programs, and we will continue to seek the partnership of our shared governance bodies. We are also hearing from you about your desire to continue the critical work of discovery, education, and patient care. Your commitment to improving and saving lives, pursuing the next discovery, and advancing opportunity is both inspiring and unsurprising – this is what Johns Hopkins and its people do.

And so, I write you today to urge you to keep doing your important work.

It will take some time before we know and can provide clear guidance on the extent of the changes before us. Unless you have received specific direction from an agency to pause your work, and verification of that from our Office of General Counsel, carry on. For those of you who have received direct federal communications, our Office of General Counsel and academic leadership will provide guidance and support.

Johns Hopkins has long positioned itself financially to weather short-term disruptions in federal funding, but we are also anticipating some longer-term curtailment of activities. We will comply fully with any changes in federal laws and requirements, and we will continue to do our work and highlight its positive impact while we await clarity on those changes from the federal government and through the judicial review process.

Indeed, on the cusp of our 150th anniversary, we’ll continue to do the work that has defined our institution since our beginning – to bring the benefits of discovery to the world, open students’ minds to new ideas, care for patients who rely on us, and explore ways to better understand the human condition and find solutions to society’s great challenges. And in this work, we will be guided by the principles of excellence, ingenuity, and open inquiry, drawing on the rich tapestry of people, thought, and experience that we have long held to be essential to our success.

Thank you for the role you play in Johns Hopkins’ extraordinary academic community. We will stay in touch as we move forward together.

Sincerely,
Ron Daniels

Dear Johns Hopkins research community,

Subsequent to yesterday’s message from Provost Ray Jayawardhana and Executive Vice President Laurent Heller (January 27, 2025), we have received questions about the memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued last night regarding federal grants, cooperative agreements, and other financial assistance programs, as well as a related Q&A that OMB issued today. These OMB communications are currently under review by the courts.

The OMB memoranda are directives to federal agencies – not to funding recipients. It will take time for the judicial process to unfold and for agencies to determine how they plan to operationalize the guidance and then to communicate their decisions to us and others. It is not yet clear what the impact will be for specific programs here at Hopkins.

In coordination with the Office of General Counsel, we are closely following these developments, and we hope to gain more clarity from our federal agency partners soon.

As we await further federal guidance and direction from OGC, please continue to conduct your work as usual.

If you receive any correspondence from a federal agency regarding a pause, change, or request for information involving your federally funded research, please notify your leadership and contact OGC for support and guidance before taking any action.

We will launch a website in the coming days to serve as a central resource for updates and resources for the Hopkins research community.

Thank you,

Denis Wirtz
Vice Provost for Research

Federal Policy Developments and Johns Hopkins University

Dear faculty and staff colleagues:

The new presidential administration has made a number of announcements and policy changes affecting our work here in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and globally. We are actively working with our Office of General Counsel (OGC) and university and divisional leaders to understand the implications of each announcement for Johns Hopkins and our community.

The university has established a process to track the executive orders, agency directives, and other transition-related issues, in keeping with past practice when a new administration takes office. Work groups have been established to promptly review developments across multiple areas, coordinating closely with colleagues in OGC, finance and administration, federal strategy, and relevant divisions and departments. We will be keeping our universitywide shared governance bodies apprised of developments in the coming days and seek their partnership and input as we move forward. We are also providing support to Hopkins programs and offices directly affected by federal changes.

Johns Hopkins has proudly maintained a longstanding and highly productive partnership with the federal government across numerous presidential administrations and changes in congressional leadership, working together to fuel research and discoveries that have improved countless lives in the United States and around the world and contributed immeasurably to American economic growth and competitiveness. We will continue this critical work, guided by our founding mission of education, discovery, patient care, and service to our communities.

We will continually assess the evolving policy and regulatory landscape as federal agencies provide further guidance and direction.

Thank you for the work that you do every day to uphold our commitment to the university’s mission and all those we serve.

Sincerely,

Ray Jayawardhana
Provost

Laurent Heller
Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration