Research and Resilience at Hopkins

Dear Johns Hopkins University Community,  

Over the past year and a half, we have regularly updated you on the significant and growing impacts of the contraction of federal research funding on Johns Hopkins University. We reported in February that the total outstanding value of our multiyear federal research portfolio had declined by more than $500 million in calendar year 2025. This was due in part to our receiving 43% less in federal research funding and 28% fewer awards than in the previous year. Unfortunately, as we approach the midpoint of 2026, these downward trends have continued unabated. 

In our advocacy for the historic partnership between America’s research universities and the federal government, we have repeatedly sought to call attention to the benefits of this extraordinary collaboration for countless people across the country and around the world: economic prosperity, healthier lives, and national and global security. And we will continue, both individually and collectively, to advocate for the protection of the American model of competitive, meritocratic federal research investment. 

While our external advocacy focuses on the national risks of federal retreat from this model, we are deeply aware of the significant hardship that is being experienced at Hopkins. In conversations with faculty, staff, graduate students, and postdocs from across our community, and in regular meetings with our deans and members of the Johns Hopkins University Council, it is clear the effects of the marked decline in federal funding are being felt in profound and consequential ways.  

Colleagues have expressed confusion, uncertainty, and frustration with the pace and character of decisions from federal granting agencies, especially in the natural and life sciences. Though our colleagues continue to submit strong research proposals, the sluggish or stalled pace of awards is debilitating. Graduate students and postdocs are asking whether a career in science in the United States remains a viable option, and so too are faculty members at all stages of their careers.  

As an institution whose identity is rooted in the research ideal, what further steps can we take against the backdrop of the current retreat from federal research funding? We know it is not possible to make up fully the scale of federal research funding traditionally received at Hopkins, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars each year. But that is not to say that we are entirely without agency to mitigate the impact of this contraction in funding.  

Through budgetary reallocation, savings from belt-tightening measures, and a welcome $8.5 million in research funding from the State of Maryland, we are pleased to announce a new Research Resilience Fund (RRF), which will replace the more limited Pivot and Bridge Program that we established last year.   

Johns Hopkins new Research Resilience Fund will earmark $60 million annually over the next two years to meet the needs of faculty, students, and research teams facing federal grant terminations or delays or experiencing the broader effects of the changed research ecosystem.  

The RRF expands the previous Pivot and Bridge Program funding from $12.5 million to $60 million annually. With this higher funding level, we will be able to substantially increase the volume of awards, raise the per-award cap to $250,000, and eliminate the divisional or departmental matching requirement at a time when budgets are constrained across the university.  

The RRF will continue to span all of the research domains where the university has in the past benefited from competitively awarded federal funding, and it will support our faculty as they embark on new research or academic endeavors. Awards will be subject to a streamlined merit-based review process and may be applied toward salary coverage as well as research projects. The RRF will also continue to support PhD students and postdocs in completing their studies. More details about the criteria and application process will be available soon on the Provost’s Office website. 

In addition to this dramatically enhanced program, we know that there is more work to be done in building institutional resources. To increase our capacity for research support, we are committed to the following actions: 

• We will diversify our revenue streams: The university is partnering with our divisions to diversify and expand our revenue streams through new corporate research partnerships, clinical trial activity, and additional online and non-degree educational offerings. We also will continue to work to earn the generous philanthropic support of alumni and friends that has been so instrumental to the success of this institution.   

• We will reduce administrative expenses: Within the university’s central administration, we will implement a 10% budgetary reduction and take steps to reduce the cost to the divisions of centrally provided services. In addition, beginning this month, we are convening a Benefits Advisory Committee composed of faculty and staff to assess options for reducing the rising cost of our employee benefits. 

• We will reduce the cost of research: We will continually assess our research enterprise for any areas of duplication or fragmentation, support first-in-class research cores, and capitalize on new technologies to realize efficiencies and reduce costs.  

• We will contract our capital program: We will continue the decision made last year to reduce our five-year capital construction and renovation plans by nearly 20% while preserving essential deferred maintenance and mission-critical projects that are already funded and underway. 

These objectives will require difficult and, in some cases, painful decisions to fulfill. New forms of cooperation and collaboration will be needed from across our university. But if we are to flourish as a community devoted to ideas and service to society, we will have to summon the wherewithal and indomitable can-do spirit that lies at the core of our identity as America’s first research university.  

As we move forward together, please know how vital your work is to our university community and, most importantly, to every person whose life is touched by the impactful discoveries that Johns Hopkins has brought to the world.  

Thank you for everything you do.  

Sincerely,
Ron Daniels