San Diego State University became the first California State University system school to achieve Research 1 status in February, a research designation given by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the American Council on Education.
To achieve R1 status, an institution must meet two criteria. First, the institution must spend over $50M in “research and development.” Second, the institution must award at least 70 doctoral degrees. To determine which institutions meet this threshold, the classifications use the higher of either a three-year rolling average or most recent year data.
Between 2022-23, the year which SDSU’s R1 status was based on, the university awarded 123 doctoral degrees and totaled $158 million in research and development spending.
Since then, however, SDSU researchers have experienced the termination of at least 50 grants, as reported by EdSource.
On Aug. 7, President Trump issued an Executive Order declaring a reformed federal grantmaking process. In a White House Fact Sheet, the administration shared that it has “already terminated thousands of contracts, saving American taxpayers billions of dollars.”
In tandem with this executive order, updated priorities within the National Institute of Health and National Science Foundation state that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts no longer align with agency goals, resulting in the termination of numerous research and development grants at universities across the country.
In California, research institutions have lost an estimated $747.99 million in funding between the NIH and NSF terminated grants. SDSU alone faces a loss of $4.86 million in terminated NSF funding. The total funding cut between both NIH and NSF is valued at over $41M.
Hala Madanat, Vice President for Research and Innovation, said that while these cuts and terminated grants will not affect the university’s R1 status, cut funding will have major implications for the United States.
“I think what’s important to know is that what’s happening at the federal level could devastate innovation, could devastate research on a national perspective and puts the U.S. at a disadvantage in its global competitiveness,” Madanat said. “When you don’t have innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers to continue what the U.S. trajectory has been on, you have implications on what that means on a broader level for our national security, our innovation, all of those things that are important to our economy.”
Gustaaf Jacobs, a professor in the Aerospace Engineering department, said that he is unsure about the potential impacts of federal research funding cuts. None of his research has been directly impacted by the federal budget cuts, since his funding doesn’t come from NIH or NSF.
Still, Jacobs, who has been conducting research at SDSU for 20 years, said that it is difficult to gauge the aftermath of the current budget cuts on his own research, given that constant budget fluctuations affect research regardless.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next half year to a year,” Jacobs said. “I think that’s something that will have to show itself. I do think that we’re gonna have to probably think about shifting our focus, many of us. Budgets have changed, not necessarily only cut; it’s hard to say where the chips are going to fall at this point, but certainly there’s no doubt there are cuts.”
The terminated NSF and NIH grants at SDSU include research and programs involving mental health, diversity, sexual minorities and “underrepresented individuals.”
The Daily Aztec reached out to multiple researchers who have had grants terminated and graduate students conducting similar research, all of whom either declined or did not respond to requests for comment.
Madanat said that in the face of budget cuts, SDSU has managed to provide some support for impacted researchers.
“It has implications, but we’ve been able, through philanthropy and other sources, to fill in many of the gaps,” she said. “We’ve received $1 million through the Prebys Foundation locally that has allowed us to bridge our doctoral students who have lost their funding and some of the projects that had lost their funding.”
Additionally, Madanat said that the defunding of projects does not threaten the intended degree of PhD candidates or masters students.
“We’ve been able to weather it, but it depends on how much worse it gets,” Madanat said. “For now I would say no, it has no implication given the other source of funding we’ve been able to secure”
Additionally, Jacobs said that even with the recent budget cuts, the university’s R1 status still reflects SDSU’s research achievement dating even before he was hired.
“San Diego State has been a research-active university for much longer than the R1 designation that we just got last year,” he said. “It’s more of a confirmation of something we’ve known for a very long time; something that was bound to happen.”
The battle to restore grant funding is already underway.
So far, SDSU has recovered an estimated $11.86 in NIH funding through numerous grant appeals, and on Sept. 22, the Trump administration was ordered by the federal court to restore 500 NIH grants to UCLA.
Additionally, the state of California, along with 15 other states, filed a lawsuit against Robert F. Kennedy, Secretary of Health and Human Services and others in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This lawsuit challenges the termination of grants related to “DEI,” “transgender issues,” “vaccine hesitancy” or “another topic disfavored by the current administration,” asserting that these grant cancellations are unjustified.
As funding cuts and grant terminations become increasingly contested, Jacobs emphasized the importance of research in any field.
“Things are changing in terms of federal funding and that’s something we’re going to have to see where things go,” he said. “It’s important that people keep reminding our politicians and administrators that there is no great education without very good research.”
