Guidance on federal funding developments

Dear members of the MIT community,

Since January 20, the federal government has issued multiple Presidential Executive Orders and an increasing number of guidance notices that affect our research enterprise. These actions have understandably caused confusion and concern across our community.

A memo issued early this week by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) put a temporary pause on certain awards from federal agencies until they undergo OMB review. Yesterday, OMB clarified the memo, narrowing its scope. The pause has also now been challenged in court, and the situation remains in flux.

We are intensely focused on assessing all available information and will be in close touch with our research community, including our students. This new web page (Touchstone login required) offers a central source for the facts, and we will continue to update it.

For principal investigators who have already received guidance from their sponsor (specifically, those with awards from NASA, NSF and USAID): We will be in touch with additional guidance.

For principal investigators who have not yet received guidance from your granting agencies: It will be important for us to know if your prime or direct sponsor contacts you about a change – for example, communicating a stop-work order, termination, suspension or other notice. Please share it immediately with your DLCI leadership, your RAS contract administrator, and research-policy-questions@mit.edu so that we can help determine a response.

For now, we offer the caution that, during this period of uncertainty, we cannot be sure if or when federal funds will cover any new grant expenditures. We therefore ask all members of our research community to constrain non-personnel expenditures. Any questions in that regard can be directed to research-policy-questions@mit.edu.

Sincerely,

Ian A. Waitz
Vice President for Research