Federal Hiring Freeze

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I saw someone make the good point that these are all negotiated rates, so this could be argued as breach of contract (and also that getting rid of grant admin stuff is going to lead to PIs spending most of their time doing grant accounting).
 
It’s funny to me that DOGE and Trump are conveniently targeting aspects of the government that actually have a net positive ROI for the country (I think NIH has something like a 2-3x return based on drug discovery, etc.) vs. the extremely bloated military budget that represents around 15% the entire national budget. Anyone who doesn’t understand the purpose of IDCs clearly does not understand how research infrastructure works. Some places, like Harvard, charge way too much IMO but cutting IDCs to 15% across the board will absolutely gut the scientific enterprise and the benefits to the economy and society that come with it…

Little did I know 9 months ago in accepting primarily a clinical job after fellowship (vs. a more research heavy job that I’d idolized since the start of my training) that I was saving myself a massive headache right now. I feel most awful for all the junior PIs that I know…
 
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Ollie123 said:
Schools like UNC just got thrown into a budget deficit of ~ $300,000,000 (rough armchair calculation based on their IDC rate and 2024 NIH grant support) overnight. Obviously it will vary across schools, but that's a big enough hole they can't just shuffle some chairs around to dig up. Some may be rescued by states, others may lean on endowments but a lot won't be able to adjust quick enough.
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(Clipping from my post on this topic in the physician-scientists forum)

Anyway the AMC admins are just going to figure out how to reroute their pound of flesh through the directs. Prices for core services, mouse facilities, sequencing, biorepository, all are going to skyrocket. We will all be paying dean's taxes on our bench space and computers, and all of it will be funnelled into the direct costs. There's never any free lunch, and the admins will always figure out how to win the game.
 
Ollie123 said:
I think that would be true if this was done well, with a reasonable ramp-down period and effort to reduce the regulations that many of the IDCs get spent on (grants management offices, etc.). I cannot possibly envision a more incompetent way to go about things if that is actually the goal. Many/most grants will represent a net loss for the institution under this model. Universities will - quite understandably - start disallowing applications. Most medical school researchers are soft money, which will go away.

I mean, if by "restructure" you mean mass unemployment and a sizable portion of institutions having to simply close their doors and/or halt all research activities while only providing bare-bones education....I can perhaps see it. I certainly don't think the effects of this will be subtle. Schools like UNC just got thrown into a budget deficit of ~ $300,000,000 (rough armchair calculation based on their IDC rate and 2024 NIH grant support) overnight. Obviously it will vary across schools, but that's a big enough hole they can't just shuffle some chairs around to dig up. Some may be rescued by states, others may lean on endowments but a lot won't be able to adjust quick enough.
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Yes.

Have to get rid of the corresponding federal regulations and then you can eliminate entire deans, assistant deans and staffs. Delete clinical trials.gov, simplify grants.gov and application requirements. No more flattening PDFs or pdf packages. Just submit individually uncompiled Word generated PDFs. Get rid of signing official requirements and routing on progress reports. Allow carryover in all research grants. For example, entire grant awarded at grant start. No fiscal year related reporting requirements or budget rules.

Eliminate most audit categories. Decrease the irb regs, and paper work demands

Go back to the regulatory environment in which a pi could run a project on their own or with a student with no coordinators and a 3 page consent form.

Without corresponding elimination of regs that caused the administrative bloat in academia, cutting the budget just destroys the system.
 
All of the above and more.

Ironically, most of us would love to see much of that. We hate this stuff more than anyone.
 
So apparently for those of us located in the 22 states (including NY, MA, and CA) that are named on the restraining order, it's business as usual. We are continuing to submit applications to the NIH with our regular IDC rate.

For those at institutions located in the other 28 states, it seems like many of them have actually put a hold on all NIH applications. Colleagues who have been preparing R21s and R03s for the Feb 16 (17 ) deadline are being told they cannot submit.

This is an impressive backfire on the red states. Really curious to see how this is going to play out.
 
Saw U Iowa and Penn State.
Do you know any other places that aren't submitting right now (and/or if that has been lifted now that the restraint was extended)? We've gotten nothing yet. I wouldn't be surprised either way - it frankly makes no sense to submit with indirects at 15%, but my state is red enough I think they also want to play along like everything is OK.

This is an absolute dumpster fire. I've mostly spent the last couple days moving people off and then back on fund codes as news comes out and I get seemingly random directions from leadership, am submitting a progress report that includes the phrase "We have stopped doing all work on the project and have no plans to start again". My colleague is preparing to potentially furlough all non-clinical staff if NIH refuses to issue Q1 payments, which seems an actual possibility. I've still got enough banked in startup funds on state dollars I could keep my 4 FTEs going for about a year as long as that doesn't get frozen (but it very well could). There is a possibility a colleague is going to have to cut off GRA support for someone if the dollars get taken away, in which case that poor student is not only going to lose their stipend but maybe also owe tuition (TBD?).

I need the president and the regents to sign off before I'm officially tenured. Still anxiously awaiting those signatures so I at least have some sense of stability....
 
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Just saw the sad news this morning that 20 internship sites affiliated with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BoP) were unable to secure a hiring freeze exemption, and were therefore unable to participate in Phase 1 of the APPIC match and had to withdraw 82 positions from Phase 1. My heart goes out to all affected by this, as I can only begin to imagine how much additional stress this causes to an already stressful time...
 
oliversacks4thewin said:
Just saw the sad news this morning that 20 internship sites affiliated with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BoP) were unable to secure a hiring freeze exemption, and were therefore unable to participate in Phase 1 of the APPIC match and had to withdraw 82 positions from Phase 1. My heart goes out to all affected by this, as I can only begin to imagine how much additional stress this causes to an already stressful time...
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I do know someone affected by this, who suddenly had their ranking list evaporate. The conventional wisdom is that these ranks will be skipped and shouldn’t necessarily negatively impact how you match. However, if prior years’ published statistics are any indication, of course, your total number of submitted ranks is associated with a higher likelihood of match.

Alongside that, though, these sites were some of the few mandatory in-person interview sites. My kudos to the generations before that did mandatory interviews at every single site, but with ballooning airfare and travel prices they are out thousands of dollars and refunded only the $32 application fee.

But I think the biggest thing making me feel for them and other students like them is passing on their ideal of a great internship year. While of course, it’s just a year and you can do a year anywhere and get the doctorate, it is also a milestone year of training that you get one crack at. Many people, like the one I knew, had planned on doing their best to match to one of these sites for years during their doctoral training.

Just an overall ****ty situation. I’m sure APPIC and the FBOP staff are equally disappointed as well.
 
The doge sledgehammer is going to cause pain and disruption. That being said, the bureaucracy and inefficiency and bloat of the federal government needed to be addressed. Remains to be seen whether the cure is worse than the disease. Federal grants for research and assistance with training programs is generally good, but if it becomes the only way to make it all work then I definitely see the downside. I know when I did a neuro rotation at a large university medical center that they were getting lots of money from private companies as well. They had their names on the buildings. Definitely would not advocate for privatizing all research, but just makes me think that multiple sources of funding is wiser and probably healthier for the system.
 
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smalltownpsych said:
The doge sledgehammer is going to cause pain and disruption. That being said, the bureaucracy and inefficiency and bloat of the federal government needed to be addressed. Remains to be seen whether the cure is worse than the disease. Federal grants for research and assistance with training programs is generally good, but if it becomes the only way to make it all work then I definitely see the downside. I know when I did a neuro rotation at a large university medical center that they were getting lots of money from private companies as well. They had their names on the buildings. Definitely would not advocate for privatizing all research, but just makes me think that multiple sources of funding is wiser and probably healthier for the system.
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While I agree with sentiment, I highly doubt that the massive amounts of taxpayer money that goes to multinational corporations for subsidies will get the sledgehammer treatment, or likely any real reform at all. This really only has a very little bit to do with actually eliminating inefficiencies and waste. Especially considering that the stated reason behind much of this is to fund a tax cut program, that largely goes to top earners and corporations.

So yes, I agree that the federal government could operate more lean and be more accountable. But, this isn't being done to benefit the vast majority of US citizens, it's fairly clear. I mean, I'm one of those that will benefit greatly from a financial perspective, but it'll be a lot of pain for those who don't make anything close to what my household does.
 
WisNeuro said:
While I agree with sentiment, I highly doubt that the massive amounts of taxpayer money that goes to multinational corporations for subsidies will get the sledgehammer treatment, or likely any real reform at all. This really only has a very little bit to do with actually eliminating inefficiencies and waste. Especially considering that the stated reason behind much of this is to fund a tax cut program, that largely goes to top earners and corporations.

So yes, I agree that the federal government could operate more lean and be more accountable. But, this isn't being done to benefit the vast majority of US citizens, it's fairly clear. I mean, I'm one of those that will benefit greatly from a financial perspective, but it'll be a lot of pain for those who don't make anything close to what my household does.
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The bloat is only going to get worse in reality. They are going fire a $60k employee and bring in a $100k contractor to do the work. Then you still have to pay the one federal employee left to monitor the work of the contractors.

And with what is currently happening, that federal employee will be a great steward of federal money. He can't be bought off or he might lose that steady government paycheck...oh wait.

DOGE has officially made me a worse federal employee and many others as well. We're too busy reading fork emails and looking for new jobs to care about doing the current one.
 
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If I take a peek at some of the strategies being used to increase efficiency by the folks in the ear of this administration, these generally include reducing staffing and safety requirements, prioritizing automation regardless of resulting quality, and then crushing any competition through questionable (but mostly legal) means until they can raise prices when all competition is stomped out. There aren't a lot of levers to pull to increase profits, especially quarter to quarter, so they often employ destabilizing and demoralizing approaches. It's efficient if money is the only metric and we don't think of long-term impacts.

I like efficiency. I like being careful with my money. I married someone in finance. There are several sensible approaches that would have been less chaotic and cheaper. This seems to just give the illusion of efficiency for political theater rather than actually being effective or even long-term.
 
Like I said above, I'm all for improved efficiency but what is being done is the opposite of that.

So far I haven't seen anything to suggest there are plans to remove even a single bureaucratic hurdle in the scientific process. In fact, they are actually introducing new ones since now grants have to be screened for a list of naughty words. In the mid-term, I'm expecting they will outsource this to a broken half-baked AI algorithm that will declare a grant as "Woke" or "Not Woke" with no recourse even when it makes some obvious misclassifications because that is just how society operates these days, but we're a ways off from that right now.

Keeping procedures the same and laying people off slows everything down, it doesn't speed anything up.
 
smalltownpsych said:
I know when I did a neuro rotation at a large university medical center that they were getting lots of money from private companies as well. They had their names on the buildings. Definitely would not advocate for privatizing all research, but just makes me think that multiple sources of funding is wiser and probably healthier for the system.
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Pharma/industry supported trials address really different questions vs the basic research that is federally funded.

Private industry lives and dies by the bottom line, so the studies are usually trials of interventions that have relatively immediate market potential.
All those interventions are ultimately the result of many years of more basic studies that had no immediate application or profit potential, and thus were entirely reliant on federal dollars.

If you cut off the federal money for basic science, there won't be much left for industry to swoop in and monetize at the final hour.
 
Ollie123 said:
Like I said above, I'm all for improved efficiency but what is being done is the opposite of that.

So far I haven't seen anything to suggest there are plans to remove even a single bureaucratic hurdle in the scientific process. In fact, they are actually introducing new ones since now grants have to be screened for a list of naughty words. In the mid-term, I'm expecting they will outsource this to a broken half-baked AI algorithm that will declare a grant as "Woke" or "Not Woke" with no recourse even when it makes some obvious misclassifications because that is just how society operates these days, but we're a ways off from that right now.

Keeping procedures the same and laying people off slows everything down, it doesn't speed anything up.
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I'm completely on your side of this, but I'm guessing the idea was to turn off the money spigot and thereby force the individual institutions to figure out internally where to find the efficiency.
 
Sanman said:
The bloat is only going to get worse in reality. They are going fire a $60k employee and bring in a $100k contractor to do the work. Then you still have to pay the one federal employee left to monitor the work of the contractors.

And with what is currently happening, that federal employee with be a great steward of federal money. He can't be bought off or he might lose that steady government paycheck...oh wait.

DOGE has officially made me a worse federal employee and many others as well. We're too busy reading fork emails and looking for new jobs to care about doing the current one.
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I mean, in certain areas, they'll save money. Eliminate certain medical specialties in the VA, and send Vets out into the community. Since many of those specialists do not take that payment plan, they'll be on an immensely long wait list for those that do and likely die before getting that service completed in the first place. It's genius.
 
WisNeuro said:
I mean, in certain areas, they'll save money. Eliminate certain medical specialties in the VA, and send Vets out into the community. Since many of those specialists do not take that payment plan, they'll be on an immensely long wait list for those that do and likely die before getting that service completed in the first place. It's genius.
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It'll be a bit of a moot point. The long term plan is to cut the number of service connected conditions for VA folks and cut medicaid benefits as well. So they won't qualify to see the specialist anyway. Just die when you can longer be a wage slave is the general plan for poor folks.
 
Sanman said:
It'll be a bit of a moot point. The long term plan is to cut the number of service connected conditions for VA folks and cut medicaid benefits as well. So they won't qualify to see the specialist anyway. Just die when you can longer be a wage slave is the general plan for poor folks.
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Well, considering how much individuals across most demographic backgrounds who did not have college degrees broke for Trump in 2024, this is what they voted for.
 
I think Trumpies fail to understand that efficiency and entitlements are fundamentally at conflict. The government is not a business - it’s a sociopolitical entity/contract by and for the people.

This is an extremely frustrating and turbulent time, and I hope we start to feel the repercussions at this at a larger scale to snap folks out of the “but the democrats!!!!” syndrome. Hopefully people remained pissed and turn out in 2026 and 2028. There is so much NIMBYism when it comes to people thinking about how the government should work. The classic example was someone I saw on Twitter excited about Trump cutting the NIH budget but hoping that her daughter, a current STEM grad student, won’t feel the repercussions. People are so short-sighted sometimes…
 
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WisNeuro said:
Well, considering how much individuals across most demographic backgrounds who did not have college degrees broke for Trump in 2024, this is what they voted for.
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Well I appreciate their sacrifice so that I can get a tax cut.
 
tr said:
I'm completely on your side of this, but I'm guessing the idea was to turn off the money spigot and thereby force the individual institutions to figure out internally where to find the efficiency.
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I mean, I'm sure that was what they were hoping for but the challenge is just that they also dictate the operating procedures to a large degree. The only "efficiency" I feel like can be found is non-compliance with federal regulations. Which I actually suspect is our common ground because I think both sides agree a lot of them are completely nonsensical, but no one is going to be non-compliant with a hostile administration....they're just going to slow everything the heck down and be SUPER compliant with the one employee they have left.
 
We are living out the last days of an empire. Probably for the best
 
allantois said:
We are living out the last days of an empire. Probably for the best
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But it had to be done or risk the cost of eggs going up. Sooo….anyone notice the price of eggs lately? $4.95/dz…highest ever.

I am sure the hiring freeze will just “go away” though, just like COVID did once Trump declared it so in 2020.
—

I’m sorry to all federally-employed workers bc this is going to be a mess, and you all deserve better.
 
Hey, all.

Sorry to redirect the conversation, but do any of you know about the NIH IRTA program? I applied and recieved an offer to an NIH lab through the program. Of course, OITE announced that the program has since been put on hold indefinitely, and I'm certain some labs within the IRP will have their funding slashed in March. Do any of you know of any applicants with offers? Were their offers rescinded? I haven't heard much from my lab, and I'm panicking.
 
As with almost everything at NIH right now, its on pause right now and nobody knows nothin' Postbac Program Rumor is that things are effectively "off" completely for the next year, but to my knowledge that is far from official (i.e., friend of a friend who is an NIH investigator has "heard rumblings that IRTA may be off this year").

No harm in gently checking with the PI but also realize they aren't likely to know much more than you.

If I were you I would 100% start looking for backup plans. It isn't officially cancelled done but it is definitely in the realm of possibility and you don't want to be left hanging.
 
PhD student. Just got word that it's anticipated that we are going to lose so much external funding that our department has told us not to count on getting a half time assistantship (quarter time is still expected).

This is going to f*** our stipends obviously.
 
Oof. That is very unfortunate. I'm actually surprised by that though unless they are funneling funds in an unusual way or the department was specifically supporting students through grants specifically for minority applicants they are expecting to be yanked. Graduate stipend/tuition normally come as direct costs if you are on a research line so shouldn't be impacted.
 
Ollie123 said:
Oof. That is very unfortunate. I'm actually surprised by that though unless they are funneling funds in an unusual way or the department was specifically supporting students through grants specifically for minority applicants they are expecting to be yanked. Graduate stipend/tuition normally come as direct costs if you are on a research line so shouldn't be impacted.
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We do, as it turns out, funnel funds in an unusual way although I forget the exact type of system we use as it simply wasn't relevant until now. It still felt premature to make such an announcement, although a lot of our larger grants, the grants that provide a large number of assistantships, cover topics that are directly being targeted so it's possible faculty are priming us to be prepared.

Needless to say, I went from "I don't really need to check my bank account to go out to eat tonight" to "how much debt may I need to take out and would it be financially worth it to continue?" Funding was one of the my key decision makers along with faculty fit, so this situation is a pain in the a**.
 
The Cinnabon said:
We do, as it turns out, funnel funds in an unusual way although I forget the exact type of system we use as it simply wasn't relevant until now. It still felt premature to make such an announcement, although a lot of our larger grants, the grants that provide a large number of assistantships, cover topics that are directly being targeted so it's possible faculty are priming us to be prepared.

Needless to say, I went from "I don't really need to check my bank account to go out to eat tonight" to "how much debt may I need to take out and would it be financially worth it to continue?" Funding was one of the my key decision makers along with faculty fit, so this situation is a pain in the a**.
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Omg… I’m so sorry.

If you haven’t already done so, consider checking the paperwork you signed when you first accepted your offer. In my case, my grad school guaranteed tuition remission and a full stipend that could come from a variety of sources (teaching, research, merit, or clinical service). It’s unclear to me if you have recourse or not since grad students are often not considered employees, but them adjusting your stipend terms could be a legal issue in theory.
 
jdawg2017 said:
Omg… I’m so sorry.

If you haven’t already done so, consider checking the paperwork you signed when you first accepted your offer. In my case, my grad school guaranteed tuition remission and a full stipend that could come from a variety of sources (teaching, research, merit, or clinical service). It’s unclear to me if you have recourse or not since grad students are often not considered employees, but them adjusting your stipend terms could be a legal issue in theory.
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It's only guaranteed for the first year, although historically we've never once had an issue not providing really good funding (especially as we're in a low COL area). So it doesn't feel like there's a lot of recourse.
 
jdawg2017 said:
Omg… I’m so sorry.

If you haven’t already done so, consider checking the paperwork you signed when you first accepted your offer. In my case, my grad school guaranteed tuition remission and a full stipend that could come from a variety of sources (teaching, research, merit, or clinical service). It’s unclear to me if you have recourse or not since grad students are often not considered employees, but them adjusting your stipend terms could be a legal issue in theory.
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In my experience, those offers almost always have a “contingent on funding” style line. Or they say something like “funding for X years is typically available but cannot be strictly guaranteed.”
 
Got news from several colleagues today that several NIH study sections scheduled for this week were cancelled last-minute with no clear intention of rescheduling aside from a “later date.” Feeling especially crappy for an old mentor whose new R01 in the Alzheimer’s space will not be reviewed.
 
jdawg2017 said:
Got news from several colleagues today that several NIH study sections scheduled for this week were cancelled last-minute with no clear intention of rescheduling aside from a “later date.” Feeling especially crappy for an old mentor whose new R01 in the Alzheimer’s space will not be reviewed.
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Can personally confirm both the IPTA and ARM meetings scheduled this week are cancelled. Have an R01 and a K23 where I'm mentor slated for review in those. Also still waiting on the NOA for a 7th percentile R01 that every sign has indicated they "want" to fund but the council meeting was cancelled. Supposedly all of this is because they can't publish to the federal register right now and without that they can't hold meetings. If we hope for the best, things should be back on track in a few months and at least this piece is just a bump in the road.

Personally? I have 3 NIH grants slated for submission in March.....really finding it hard to motivate myself to work on them. And this is work that isn't even tangentially within the DEI space or any other political hotspots.

I've also gotten a truly comical number of invitations for study sections in late March and early April, but have received no follow-up about scheduling yet for the ones I agreed to be involved in.
 
Just got news from some colleagues this morning at Columbia that their grants are “revoked” to the antisemitism of the campus. This includes some F grant and T grant mechanisms…

Absolutely insane. Penalizing current and future scientists for the debatable ineptitude of the Columbia main campus admin on making the campus safe for Jewish students and staff 100% has nothing to do with combatting antisemitism.
 
jdawg2017 said:
Just got news from some colleagues this morning at Columbia that their grants are “revoked” to the antisemitism of the campus. This includes some F grant and T grant mechanisms…

Absolutely insane. Penalizing current and future scientists for the debatable ineptitude of the Columbia main campus admin on making the campus safe for Jewish students and staff 100% has nothing to do with combatting antisemitism.
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Well, it was never about combating antisemitism in the first place
 
Ugh. Also have some folks at Columbia I'm concerned about, but no word from them yet.

Friend elsewhere did have a vaccine hesitancy grant revoked.
 
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jdawg2017 said:
Just got news from some colleagues this morning at Columbia that their grants are “revoked” to the antisemitism of the campus. This includes some F grant and T grant mechanisms…

Absolutely insane. Penalizing current and future scientists for the debatable ineptitude of the Columbia main campus admin on making the campus safe for Jewish students and staff 100% has nothing to do with combatting antisemitism.
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They gave up that one protester who's now had his green card revoked and essentially been disappeared. What more does the government want from them??
 
I’m looking forward to the RFAs for “preventing measles and understanding its consequences on human health” in the years ahead.
 
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