Major universities sue to block Trump cuts to NSF research funding

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By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) – Major U.S. universities have filed a lawsuit seeking to block President Donald Trump’s administration from carrying out steep cuts to federal research funding provided to academic institutions by the National Science Foundation.

The lawsuit was filed late on Monday in federal court in Boston by 13 schools including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University, as well as the Association of American Universities and two other academic trade groups.

They took aim at a decision NSF announced on Friday to cap reimbursement for indirect research costs at 15%, an action that mirrored funding cuts the National Institutes of Health and U.S. Department of Energy attempted that judges have so far blocked.

“We are seeking to prevent implementation of this poorly conceived and short-sighted policy, which will only hurt the American people and weaken the country,” the trade groups said in a joint statement.

Other schools that joined the lawsuit include Brown University, the University of California, California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania.

NSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The NSF funding cuts are part of the Trump administration’s wide-ranging efforts to slash government spending, an effort overseen by the Elon Musk-spearheaded Department of Government Efficiency.

NSF, a $9 billion agency that funds scientific research, has already canceled hundreds of grants out of step with the Republican president’s priorities at a time when the administration has also been freezing billions of dollars in government funding for numerous universities, including Harvard.

NSF on Friday said that going forward it will cut the rate at which it reimburses research institutions for “indirect costs” related to achieving a scientific project’s goals, such as computer systems, equipment and infrastructure.

NSF said the rate cut was intended to “streamline funding practices, increase transparency, and ensure that more resources are directed toward direct scientific and engineering research activities.”

But the lawsuit argued NSF’s action, if allowed to stand, “will badly undermine scientific research at America’s universities and erode our nation’s enviable status as a global leader in scientific research and innovation.”

The lawsuit argued the policy was just as unlawful as the rate cuts that courts have blocked at NIH and the Energy Department, saying it violated statutes and federal regulations governing indirect cost rates.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Marguerita Choy)