Garber Blasts Trump’s Limits on NIH Support for Indirect Costs

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 slammed the Trump administration’s Friday decision to limit funding for overhead costs associated with research projects in an email sent to Harvard affiliates Sunday afternoon.

Garber wrote that Trump’s order — which would significantly reduce grants for indirect expenses like building maintenance, utilities, and laboratory equipment — would “slash funding and cut research activity at Harvard and nearly every research university in our nation.”

“The discovery of new treatments would slow, opportunities to train the next generation of scientific leaders would shrink, and our nation’s science and engineering prowess would be severely compromised,” Garber wrote in the email.

Under the new order, Harvard will be able to charge the National Institute of Health at most 15 cents in overhead costs for every dollar spent on research — a significant decrease from the 69 cents the University currently charges. The average NIH indirect cost rate has historically been between 27 to 28 percent.

Trump’s directive will take effect Monday and apply to both current and future grants.

Garber’s Sunday message is a significantly more pointed indictment of the Trump administration than the mellow statement he issued following the White House’s now-rescinded order directing a federal fund freeze.

“When other nations are expanding their investment in science, America should not drop knowingly and willingly from her lead position on the endless frontier,” Garber wrote in Sunday’s email.

Former Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier wrote in a post on X that Trump’s order would “cause chaos and harm biomedical research and researchers in hospitals, schools and institutes nationwide.”

“A sane government would never do this,” Flier wrote.

Vice Provost for Research John H. Shaw wrote in an email to faculty Sunday that Harvard was actively working to let research projects proceed without interruption.

“We are working closely with state and private universities, national organizations, and other groups to ensure that these important research activities can continue,” he wrote.

Garber’s email to Harvard affiliates follows similar messages from administrators at other universities who warned affiliates that the cut would severely impede research projects.

The University of Wisconsin–Madison issued a Saturday statement that the order would “not only disrupt the day-to-day important work of the university but will ultimately harm the livelihoods of real people across Wisconsin and the country.”

The Association of American Universities, the American Association of Medical Colleges, the Association of Public Land-Grant Universities, and the American Council on Education all issued condemnations of the order on Friday and Saturday.

In his message, Garber stressed what he described as the importance of science at Harvard and elsewhere to the “health and prosperity” of the United States.

“Now is the time to defend the research partnership that has done so much for our nation and the world, and that can do even more in the future,” Garber wrote in his message.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.