Q&A with Bogdan Vernescu on the Impact of Federal Research Funding Changes

Bogdan Vernescu is the vice president and vice provost for research and innovation.

The 2024–25 academic year was the most productive ever for WPI research. Preliminary numbers show that expenditures from grants and contracts were the largest ever. Significantly, WPI was ranked as a Research 1 institution for the first time by the Carnegie Foundation. This reflects the quality and quantity of research—and the infrastructure supporting it. This makes WPI more attractive to faculty and students who want to contribute to research and innovation.

Research creates the foundation for major advances in engineering, medicine and health, energy, and national security. It is how we find solutions to economic and social challenges and ultimately improve everyone’s quality of life.

Research is being done by private industry, the federal government, and universities. Each has a different mission and timescale. Universities cover the large spectrum from fundamental to applied research. We drive economic growth, translating new ideas into startups. University research also supports the development of new talent by training students to be the next generation of scientific leaders and innovators.

As evidence, one only needs to think about the inventions that have come from WPI faculty, students, and alumni: Elwood Haynes’s (Class of 1881) first mass-produced automobile; Robert Goddard’s (Class of 1908) liquid propellant-fueled rockets; Richard Whitcomb’s (Class of 1943) tipped airwing that you now see on all modern airplanes; Dean Kamen’s (Class of 1977) portable insulin pump and Segway; Scott Harris’s (Class of 1982) SolidWorks CAD software; and current research on recycled lithium-ion batteries, surgical robots, and self-healing concrete, to mention a few.

As part of the realignment of the policies and priorities of the federal agencies, we’ve had a small number of research, training, and infrastructure grants in our portfolio terminated by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The reorganizations have also slowed the pace of reviewing applications and awarding new grants. Recently, some NIH grants have been reinstated at other universities, and we are looking forward to getting similar good news.

Uncertainty about renewals of approved awards, with delays in funding, created a major challenge in appointing graduate students for the next academic year. We are trying to support faculty and students by finding short-term funding alternatives, such as seed grants from philanthropic gifts or through corporate, foundation, and state funding.

Another change announced, but not yet implemented, is the intention to reduce the portion of awards to institutions of higher education covering facilities and administrative support. This funding pays for indirect costs of research like utilities, maintenance of labs, grant management, and regulatory compliance.

According to law, facilities and administrative costs are negotiated every three years with one of the federal agencies, which in our case is the Office of Naval Research. The agency visits the campus, computes the costs, and sets a rate that is then applied to each grant. Not being able to pay for the overhead costs of research labs or for the administration of grants raises the question of how universities can maintain and upgrade research facilities and support the quality and safety of research environments.

We are doing great quality research in areas of national interest, and while federal agencies will have reduced budgets, we will look for a closer alignment with state, corporate, and foundation initiatives. In the last five years we have also received generous gifts from alumni to provide seed research initiatives for larger research centers and for the development of specific areas such as artificial intelligence.

Our researchers are developing solutions that are needed for solving significant economic challenges, such as helping create new supply chains through regeneration and recovery and using data analytics and AI in everything from health, manufacturing, and education to financial technology.

Our research is impactful and provides competitive advantages for many industries, so we will continue to work with our corporate partners. We will continue to innovate and spin off startups to expand our current portfolio of over two dozen companies. To support this, an innovation fund has been recently established through the generosity of one of our alumni.

The complexity of the U.S. research ecosystem—which grew out of the government’s strategic post-World War II efforts to become a global research and development leader—makes it difficult to replace federal funding. The existing model partners academia, government, and industry to foster innovation across all fields and plays a crucial role in maintaining U.S. economic and technological competitiveness.

Importantly, federal funding prioritizes broad national goals on a longer timescale and supports a wide range of research, from fundamental to fully applied. Corporate funding is primarily driven by product development and, with few exceptions, is on a short time horizon.

Currently, U.S. institutions of higher education receive more than half of their research funding from the federal government. About a quarter comes from universities themselves in the form of salaries, stipends, and funding for facilities and grants. The remainder is from corporate, state, and philanthropic sources. It’s a significant gap to close.