As Brown continues to navigate federal funding threats, Vice President for Research Greg Hirth ScM’87 PhD’91 shared resources — including a new University-wide funding opportunity platform, informational webinars, grant workshops and panel discussions — in a community-wide letter last month.
The offerings are a collaborative effort by the offices of Research Strategy and Development, Corporate Foundation Relations and Brown Technology Innovations.
On Pivot-RP — a new funding opportunity search database — less than 15% of the funding opportunities come from U.S. federal funding sources. This comes as the amount of grants updated daily to Grants.gov — a government website for applying to federal grants — has decreased to 80–90% of pre-January levels, the letter reads.
The Pivot-RP platform has “over 34,000 active research opportunities from a wide array of potential funders, from both public and private, national and international sources,” according to a joint statement sent to The Herald by the BTI Executive Director Neil Veloso, RSD Senior Director Edel Minogue and CFR Executive Director Sasha Dolgicer.
“In the near future, faculty can expect topic-specific funding opportunity newsletters in their inboxes,” the statement read.
RSD, BTI and CFR also help support Brown’s research community through events such as one-on-one consultations and group workshops, according to the statement. BTI will be hosting a panel discussion on April 21 on how to best collaborate on research with companies, and the CFR hosted a workshop for research funding on Thursday.
Brown’s RSD team regularly hosts outreach events, including annual federal proposal writing workshops and webinars. In May, the RSD will host a webinar discussing how research at Brown will be impacted by the Trump administration’s new federal budget.
The Trump administration is set to freeze $510 million of Brown’s federal funding due to alleged antisemitism and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on campus, a White House official told The Herald last week.
At least $8 million in research grants awarded to Brown researchers have been terminated since Trump took office, The Herald previously reported. Affected researchers have had to lay off staff from their studies, and some participants have been left without treatment.
As of March 31, one percent of existing research grants had been cut, according to a community-wide letter from Provost Francis Doyle and Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey ’91.
The grant terminations targeted research related to “gender, race or diversity, equity and inclusion.” The studies were supported by funding from agencies like the National Institutes of Health, Office of Naval Research, the State Department and NASA.
In February, the University joined a lawsuit against the NIH to stop plans to cut funding for research grants. Hirth also submitted a declaration in support of a filing by the Rhode Island attorney general that aimed to maintain a continued flow of federal funding.
As a result of NIH grant terminations, Philip Chan, a physician and associate professor of medicine and behavioral and social sciences, has lost three NIH grants. These grants, totaling over $3 million, focused on areas including the mental health of LGTBTQ+ individuals and facilitating access to HIV prevention medication.
“These cuts to research funding have real-world consequences for both patients and staff in terms of jobs,” Chan wrote in an email to The Herald.
When asked about the University’s support for faculty research amid financial constraints, Chan believes that “the leadership in general has done a good job in difficult circumstances.”
“There is a lot at risk here,” he wrote.
Chan hopes the University preserves academic freedom and free speech, protects faculty and students from legal and financial risks and considers supporting and continuing LGBTQ+ research.
“These are challenging times, but I think Brown can set an example and serve as a leader in this area,” Chan wrote.
Roma Shah is a senior staff writer covering University Hall and higher education. She's a freshman from Morgan Hill, CA and studies Neuroscience. In her free time, she can be found doing puzzles, hiking or curled up with a book.
