February 14th: The Federal administration’s recent push to cap indirect cost recovery at 15% for NIH grants has reignited concerns across the research community. While this might seem like a minor accounting adjustment, such a cap would result in a 70% reduction in the amount PSU receives from NIH grants to cover essential research infrastructure and administrative costs. F&A reimbursements are critical to sustaining federally funded research—they support laboratory space, research equipment, IT and data security, regulatory compliance, and the administrative staff needed for grant management and reporting. Without full reimbursement, universities must absorb these costs, diverting resources from faculty support, graduate education, and institutional research investments.
Recognizing the harm this would cause, multiple states and research institutions—including Oregon—challenged the policy in court. A TRO has blocked its implementation for but the uncertainty has already disrupted research planning. At this time, Sponsored Projects and Administration continues to bill at the allowable F&A rate.
January 31st: A Federal Court Issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) directing Federal grant-making agencies to "... not pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel or terminate... awards and obligations." As agencies begin to digest this new TRO, we expect to hear further communications from our partners. Although this restraining order lifts the general pause on reviewing proposals and issuing awards, we continue to experience delays in the grant review process and agency communications.
January 29th: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has rescinded M-25-13, the original OMB memo from January 27th that called for a blanket temporary pause of federal agency grants. This rescission does not rescind any other memo or executive order, so agencies will continue to review existing grants for compliance with other EOs. Additionally, any previously announced agency communications regarding "stop" or "modification to project" notifications remain in effect.
January 29th: In response to legal challenges, a federal judge has now blocked federal policy changes outlined in the OMB memo until at least February 3rd. As a result, we are relieved to lift the spending restrictions on federal grants. Please note that this does not affect any stop-work orders or other directives from federal sponsors impacting individual awards or programs. It is critical to follow those restrictions as they remain in effect. While we have lifted broad spending restrictions, we encourage projects to remain cautious with expenditures and prioritize essential spending until there is more clarity on long-term federal funding policies.
January 28th: As President Cudd shared in her 1/28 message, we are working urgently to assess the full impact of the OMB memo shared on January 27th. In the meantime, we request that all University researchers working on federal grants prioritize support for existing personnel and suspend non-essential spending. This includes delaying new or additional commitments for travel, supplies, equipment, contracts, hiring new staff, or other discretionary expenditures that are not immediately critical to ongoing work. While we recognize that this temporary “pause” may disrupt plans, we hope it will be brief. We remain committed to providing additional guidance and updates as soon as more information becomes available.