Harvard vs Trump: what this epic battle means for science

Research across science and medicine will probably shrink at one of the world’s most elite universities amid a new political reality

Mary Rice was among hundreds of scientists at Harvard University who watched helplessly as millions of dollars in research funds disappeared in an instant in mid-May. Two of the pulmonologist’s grants were formally cancelled as part of a series of punitive actions taken by the administration of US President Donald Trump against the university. Little justification was given to Rice aside from a statement that her research does not align with government priorities.

The cuts imperil Rice’s work at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, including a US$2.5-million clinical trial designed to test whether air purifiers benefit people with lung disease. Terminating that trial, she says, would waste millions of dollars in taxpayer money that have already been spent, as well as the time, blood and nasal tissues that nearly 180 people contributed to the study. “If we were to just close up shop completely today, we would not get an answer.”

Rice is on the front lines as Harvard seeks to navigate its new relationship with the US government, which has shifted from long-standing partner to hostile adversary. The Trump administration alleged that Harvard has failed to protect against antisemitism, and the government has demanded changes to the university’s curriculum as well as hiring and enrolment procedures that it says promote a liberal political agenda. The administration has terminated grants worth more than $2.4 billion over multiple years and sought to ban international students from attending the institution. Harvard is fighting both actions in court.

Legal experts argue that Harvard is ultimately likely to prevail in its challenges to the Trump administration’s latest attacks, but how and when remains unclear. Trump has said that the government is nearing a deal with the university, but researchers told Nature that long-term threats to science at Harvard are likely to remain no matter what kind of deal emerges. For example, the administration is pushing broader efforts to increase taxes on university endowments and slash ‘indirect’ funds in research grants, which pay for infrastructure at the institutions that host the grants. The government has taken similar punitive measures against other elite universities, such as Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island; Columbia University in New York City; Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

But the Trump administration has aimed its harshest actions at Harvard — arguably the most prestigious US university and the one with the largest endowment, a $53-billion pot of money that comes from donations and helps to fund university activities. The issues facing Harvard, say researcher leaders, are harbingers of what could come for scores of other US universities as the government seeks to slash funding for scientific research and increase oversight of educational institutions.

In June, a federal judge ruled that hundreds of National Institutes of Health grant terminations by the government were illegal and discriminatory, and that they had to be reinstated. Some of these include grants to Harvard.

Responding to allegations in this article, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that Harvard has failed “to create a safe campus environment”, refused to share information about foreign students’ “illegal or dangerous activities” and flouted the civil rights of students and faculty members. “Suggestions that there will be economic impacts for enforcing federal law and holding institutions accountable for their failure to protect civil liberties miss the forest for the trees and completely neglect the human cost of allowing dangerous ideologies like antisemitism to fester in America.”

Scientists and academics who spoke to Nature say that the Trump administration has, in the space of five months, upended a science and innovation system that dates back to the Second World War and has helped the United States to become a scientific and economic powerhouse. Like their counterparts at other universities, Harvard leaders are now thinking about how to design a viable — and probably smaller — institution that is less reliant on federal support.

“The uncertainties are immense,” says John Holdren, a physicist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and science adviser during the presidency of Barack Obama. “If federal funding is substantially reduced over any significant period of time, it’s going change the institution in substantial ways.”

Financing the future

With its vast endowment, Harvard has more resources than other universities to withstand the unprecedented cuts in federal funding. Federal grants supplied $686 million in fiscal year 2024, accounting for nearly three-quarters of research revenue and 11% of the total for the university (see ‘Harvard’s revenue’).

Source: Harvard Univ. Financial Report Fiscal Year 2024

Although much of the endowment is locked up in long-term investments and legally dedicated to a variety of specific causes, university leaders have been busy looking for ways to tap into those funds, including seeking permission from donors to use the money to help solve the immediate crisis. Since March, the university has also raised $1.2 billion by issuing bonds. So far, Harvard has announced that it will spend $250 million to help cushion the blow to its schools as federal funding disappears; resources will be allocated in proportion to the amount lost.

In a 3 June e-mail to faculty, George Daley, dean of the medical school, said it will receive $90 million. The medical school will then contribute a further $120 million to fund research over the coming fiscal year, which begins on 1 July. All told, Daley, said in the e-mail, the medical school expects to be able to cover 74% of the cancelled federal grants over the coming year. He promised to work with department chairs and school leadership “to adjust and support the research as much as we can”.

Now it’s up to department chairs to determine how the money is distributed and which positions and projects get cut. But alternative funding mechanisms — such as borrowing money and tapping into the endowment — cannot continue indefinitely, says Jeffrey Flier, an endocrinologist and former dean of the medical school. Without a restoration of federal funding or a significant increase in investments from philanthropic organizations and industry, he adds, “Harvard Medical School’s research programmes will look drastically different in four years.”

Stay or go

The situation is even more dire at the Chan school of public health. More than $200 million in federal research grants account for nearly half of its budget this year, and international students comprise 40% of the student body. Around 21% of the budget comes from the school’s share of the Harvard endowment, but researchers fear that this revenue could also drop if the Trump administration and fellow Republicans in Congress increase the tax on university endowments, as expected. Another 12% comes from student tuition fees.