The National Institute of Health (NIH) may reduce the amount of funding that research institutions receive, including Michigan Technological University, through a proposed policy under the Trump Administration. This policy would set a maximum 15 percent indirect cost rate on all universities and institutions that are funded by the NIH, which many institutions commonly exceed at this time.
Michigan Tech’s Health Research Institute (HRI) includes researchers from a wide range of health-related fields– from cancer and genetic research to public health– which is evident from the impact of MTU research during the COVID-19 pandemic. On MTU’s HRI website, there are public records of the funding of the 2024 third fiscal quarter. During this quarter, the HRI received $9,973,741 of active funding, $8,061,093 of which – approximately 80.8 percent of total project budgets – was from federal sponsors. Unfortunately, the percentage of federal funding that comes from the NIH specifically is not publicly available.
Estimating that 50 percent of all Michigan Tech HRI federal funding comes from the NIH, a maximum of 15 percent funding would result in approximately $2.5 million that would originally come from indirect costs through the NIH would have to be covered through other means. As specific funding percentages were unavailable, this estimation could vary by one or two million dollars in either direction.
Michigan Tech’s HRI has short-term and long-term goals that deal with funding from the NIH that could be affected by the proposed policy. Under short-term goals, the HRI aims to increase NIH research expenditures by 50 percent. A long-term goal of the HRI is to change from NIH’s research enhancement grant to their educational project grant and institutional training grant, which would be a step towards Michigan Tech becoming a fully-funded, sustainable research institution. The exact timeline of these goals is not specified. As the development of this proposed NIH cost rate continues, these goals may have to change to accommodate.
