New Faculty Research Information Series #1: Navigating the New Federal Funding Landscape

Lydia Baxter-Howard:

All right. We have some, kind of introductory material that I will go ahead and get started on now. And, more people will trickle in as a presentation gets going. So thank you all for coming today. This is the first new faculty research information series of the semester, and we’re going to be discussing the new federal funding landscape and what you can do to navigate that.

Though this is part of our new faculty series, everyone is welcome. And we’re excited that you were able to join us today. My name is Lydia Baxter-Howard. I work as a proposal development specialist in the Office of Research on the Advancement and Partnerships team. As we go through the presentation, we will allow time for Q&A at the very end

So please hold your questions until that time. If you don’t want to forget it, you’re welcome to drop it in the chat as well.

So this is the outline for today’s info session. It’s going to have kind of a lot of information in it,

but hopefully it’s all digestible. We’ll begin by discussing the general, kind of federal funding landscape where it currently stands. We’ll give updates for selected agencies, including what direction they have received from congressional committees and subcommittees regarding research priorities. We’ll briefly touch on, language certification and what that means for faculty and describe kind of where we might be headed in terms of terms of F&A models-

we’ll discuss that during the federal landscape. And then we’ll wrap up by discussing some important considerations for you to consider as you submit future proposal applications. I also want to give a brief disclaimer. All of you know, the federal funding landscape is dynamic and difficult to predict right now, and it has been especially so in the last few months.

This session is going to include some projections based on the most current information as of September 29th at September 19th. We hope to summarize the current federal funding landscape, where we stand as a university, what agency priorities are emerging. We will provide some guidance for you as you continue submitting proposals. But please remember that we are in a time of unprecedented change and this information may become outdated, especially if you are viewing this as a recording.

Okay, so we’ll start by discussing the current federal funding landscape, including where Congress stands in its appropriations process for FY26 or fiscal year 26, what relevant regulatory frameworks are shifting and how proposal solicitations appear to have been impacted. Since we’re discussing funding rooted in the federal government, it’s prudent, I think, to give a little background on how this process

the process, how agencies receive these funds. This image is from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, their presentation to the 2025 National Organization of Research Development Professionals annual conference, or NORDP For those of you who are in RD, and it describes the annual federal budget process in brief. So this process begins, excuse me, this process begins with crosstalk between the executive branch of the federal government, especially the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy and federal sponsors.

This crosstalk kind of produces the presidential budget request. At some agencies, this may be called the congressional budget justification. You can kind of use those interchangeably and interchangeably for this purpose. And this is where our agencies identify their priorities based on guidance from, again, OMB and OSTP and where they request funds for those areas. There’s more information on this budget request, such as suggestions for changes to organizational structure as well as, funding for agency staff.

But we won’t be exploring that here. As you have heard earlier this year about the $3.9 billion budget request from NSF, potentially cutting cutting potential grant dollars by more than 50%, that arose from NSF’s budget request. The legislative branch of government has its own related but separate process. Budget authorizing committees meet to pass resolution and legislation that moves on to congressional appropriations committees in the House and Senate and their 12 respective respective subcommittees.

Each subcommittee then works to develop and manage consideration of one of the regular appropriations acts. The Defense Committee for Department of Defense, Energy, and Water Development includes DOE, and then the Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee and related agencies includes NSF. These acts will include specific specify dollar amounts that Congress appropriates for federal sponsors, and includes directions on how those funds should be spent. Think research priority areas.

There is rigorous debate, review, and voting process, and a voting process which varies somewhat depending on the subcommittee, but ultimately it leads to a final spending bill to be debated and voted on by the entirety of the House and Senate. And that can take a lot of back and forth. Congress eventually, we hope, comes to an agreement, and the bill is then sent to the president to sign or veto.

Currently, most of these appropriations bills have yet to be voted on. Defense and Energy and Water have passed the House, but still need to be voted on by the Senate. This process is important because this is how Congress allocates these federal dollars to be used in research. The appropriations bills, as I mentioned, include specific directions for how portions of those funds are to be spent, and they’re separate from any individual agencies budget request, which is based on the president’s budget.

This is one of the places we’re looking, to find info on federal federal research priorities.

So this is quite a busy slide, but I think it’s important to show a visual representation of the discrepancy that we can have between the president’s budget for federal sponsors compared to what is coming out of congressional appropriations. So the focus is on agencies most relevant to WSU, institution wide and, system wide, and the data here are current as of September 18th.

Back in the spring, we were hearing a lot about how agency budgets were being slashed. So that’s depicted by the gray bars, which represent the president’s budget. Over the course of the summer, congressional subcommittees in the House and Senate have been meeting, drafting and debating and voting and spending bills for this, for federal sponsors. So you can see that there’s been significant pushback from Congress in most of the agency, in most agency appropriations, but particularly with NSF and NIH.

I also want to mention that these, dollar amounts are all in millions. The USDA division’s appropriations are closer to the president’s budget, than other agencies, which is a bit masked by the scale you see here, particularly for the small, relatively small amount of funds going for AFRI, but appropriations for the AFRI program are on track to remain pretty stable compared to 2025.

So here you can see a depiction of historical appropriations for us, USDA-NIFA, USDA-ARS, NSF, HHS-National Institutes of Health, and DOE, several DOE offices that are relevant for research funding. So despite a pared down presidential budget, Congress is really on track to maintain funding for the large federal agencies research programs along a historical trajectory. This is all to say that essentially, we’re still awaiting a final budget from Congress.

The way that our government government system of checks and balances works is that the final step is for the president to sign or veto these appropriations bills, which may not happen for some time. So really, the federal landscape is still relatively unknown. It’s important to focus on what you can do to continue applying for opportunities. The proposal pressure of submitting proposals is recognized in agencies and in Congress.

Even if you’re not funded, that proposal represents a need in the research community.

Beyond the bottom line, concern about overall federal funding for research, I want to briefly discuss two areas that are changing rapidly and having effects now. So most of you have heard, that there are changes coming to indirect cost models. That is definitely true. So with the current model, universities recover indirect costs or F&A or overhead post award via a negotiated rate,

In WSU’s case, this is 53%. We are continuing to use this new negotiated rate until a new system is implemented. So, those percentages that you probably heard earlier in the year, 15% from NIH, NSF, DOE, DoD, do not apply at this time. The model, current model is likely to be replaced by one of two alternatives. One would be a universal cap that 15% I mentioned,

or the buzz is it will be closer to 25%. That universal cap may return because there’s current legal battles going on right now for most federal funders. If they do decide on a 25% flat rate on total direct costs, that would be manageable for WSU since our effective rate is actually 27%. So it wouldn’t be as bad as, as it could potentially be.

The second model that’s been put forward is the FAIR model, FAIR, and this has been developed and, considered by national research organizations, a big group called JAG got together and got a lot of feedback from universities and developed this model. You can learn a little bit more about that in, one of our previous info sessions that I’ll discuss in a second here.

This one is probably a little less likely to go through, but either one is going to represent an accounting and culture shift, and it will move away from reimbursement after the fact to a model of project specific costs that we’re obligated to spend the funds on. So we’re obligated to spend the funds on specific costs, compliance facilities, etc., where what we have thought of as indirect costs in the past, are moved to project specific expenses that require detailed tracking and accounting of research support costs that are allocated.

And we don’t know when this process is going to be resolved. We’re going to you’re probably going to hear me say we’re not sure several times in this presentation. As I mentioned, Advancement and Strategy, in the Office of Research did a really great info session, on diving into indirect costs, and we’ll be sharing a recording of that session on our site in the next few weeks here.

There are also new compliance requirements, coming to light. New regulations are aligned with the executive orders that have come out this year. So whether it is certifying that we are compliance with civil rights legislation or documenting that we are not collaborating with countries of concern, we have had to augment our review processes. These compliance items come to us two different ways pre award in announcements or agency guidelines, and post award in terms and conditions.

We have to comply with, certify or agreed to terms as an institution, not as individual applicants or individual faculty members. So this means that we’re taking more time reviewing submissions and awards. We’re also issuing reservation of rights statements with many of our awards. So that what if or when these policies are overturned, we’re not stuck. These executive orser orders have also affected our existing grants, as I’m sure many of you know.

Compared with our peer institutions, WSU has one of the most transparent policies for how recovered indirect costs are allocated, which you can examine in executive policy 02 or 2, and I would highly recommend it, it’s really well written, if you’re at all curious about how those recovered funds are spent throughout the university. And I’ve included here several examples of indirect or overhead costs, including building maintenance, utilities, I.T infrastructure, administrative support, and library services.

Administrative support includes, like your RAs and library support would include like database, subscription and access.

The Office of Research has, content, continued to maintain a summary of updates germane to the academic research community, and you can, view that at our site, linked there at the at the top of this research summary. You can find out more information about how the landscape may impact your specific research and how it’s affecting the university

the university in general, I do want to get some context, regarding the new Oversight of Federal Grantmaking Executive Order. It has implications for the timelines for solicitation release or NOFO release, BAA release, depending on the institution or the, sponsor that you’re, you’re applying to. And it instructs agencies to include a political appointee and the review process for new and existing solicitations.

So agencies are instructed to simplify their solicitation language, potentially making programs more accessible to applicants without grant support. I’d also like to note that one of the results of these of this order may be that if you’ve previously had a long term award through a federal program and that program is continuing and you’re maybe applying for a renewal, do not assume that the solicitation and award requirements have changed.

In fact, you should assume that they’ve changed. It’s really essential that you review the most recent Virgin version of that program solicitation. We’ve seen a significant reduction in the federal in the pace of federal opportunities coming out over the first half of the calendar year, relative to 2024. So even before this grant making, executive order was released.

This means that while we do have new awards coming through, there are simply fewer opportunities for which faculty can submit proposals. In the past few months, we have started to see the number of opportunities increase at some agencies, DoD and HHS, and then USDA has also released a few opportunities, but it’s still slow. And the president’s August 7th executive order on, oversight of grant making is expected to slow these, these timelines even potentially further, requiring more intensive funding opportunity and award review by political appointees, particularly as the new review processes are put into place.

It’s just going to slow things down. So we’ve had some good news in the congressional appropriations that have recently been released. But that’s not all. Next, I want to briefly summarize where we stand as university in the federal award space Through early 2025 we did see a significant slowdown in federal awards coming in compared to prior years.

But even though, even despite it, despite that, we ended FY 25, up 2 million above last year in federal award totals. So the total value of federal proposals also increased over 20 FY 24 which is a positive sign as this competition for limited funding is is going to intensify. Sustaining this proposal volume will be critical. And I’m going to continue saying that throughout this presentation

especially as WSU is competing for these shrinking pools of federal research funding. Similarly, we ended FY 25 up in our F&A revenue, our indirect costs revenue. F&A is continuing to flow in on existing awards, even with the current challenges to negotiated F&A rates. Again, we’re continuing to use our negotiated rates.

WSU also had a robust first few months, of the the 2025 fiscal year and it which pos is positioning us to end slighly ahead of FY 24 in federal award totals despite this slowdown in the second half. The total value of federal proposals increased over FY 24. Again, a positive sign as competition for limited funding intensifies. Federal award dollars dollars have also remained stable over the past three years

following prior growths. Like likely these reductions to federal budgets are going to suggest that trend may not continue. So again, sustaining your proposal volume will be critical as WSU competes for these shrinking pools of federal funding. So we’re now going to examine some of the agency priorities. Including those outlined in congressional appropriations and updates that have been made by specific agencies over the past few months. Probably unsurprisingly, across budget justification requests and congressional appropriations

across agencies, artificial intelligence is a huge priority. And additionally, there is an overall emphasis on workforce development and translational relevance even with NSF. These have always been critical areas to keep in mind. Not just as researchers, but as science communicators and ambassadors. So it’s not necessarily a new priority but, it’s definitely I think it’s definitely being empha emphasized more.

First, we’re going to discuss, the USDA. So the USDA has released its own guidance on the, restrictions on gain of, of function research. And I will go into a little bit more on that, more detail on that to follow here. Additionally, they’re tightening international collaboration protocols. This is something and this is something we’re seeing across federal sponsors, the America First memo, aims to bring American interests to the forefront of funded research and to safeguard taxpayer dollars from indirectly supporting foreign competitors, adversary, allies or entities that could potentially undermine U.S. agriculture and national security.

Existing foreign arrangements within each USDA mission area, agency and office, were to be assessed and reported to Homeland Security by August 7th. There’s a review process, for those reports, is that the review process for those reports is supposed to end in about 60 days from August 7th. So we’re still in that period. It the the report also contains prohibitions for USDA employees and affiliates, such as the participating in foreign talent recruitment programs.

Additionally, compared to the other agencies we’ll discuss later, USDA has been one of the slowest to post changes and updates. The newest solicitation for AFRI the FAS solicitation was released August 1st, but it’s really the only one to have been posted for AFRI as of yesterday, actually.

There are several important congressional priorities outlined by the Agriculture Subcommittee that align with research strengths, and I’m going to call those out here, or you can see those here. WSU has already established an AI research institute, AG Aid. Back in 2021, I believe. So this group works to foster long term symbiotic partnerships between AIag and human systems that will enable sustained agricultural productivity and create a transitional disciplinary ecosystem for technology, innovation and knowledge transfer.

So this will be a great place for WSU to continue investing. Additionally, USDA and NIFA have been encouraged to increase number the number of organic research projects funded under AFRI and SCRI, which I forgot to write down what the acronym means I apologize. And to strongly consider, national organic standards Board standard board priorities as they release those solicitations and fund that research.

We’ve heard from researchers connected with the CRC program that anticipates a large increase in funding, and they’re actively encouraging WSU faculty to apply that opportunity. For those who have you who are new to this area, specialty crops are defined as in law as fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits and horticulture, nursery crops, including floriculture. And you can read more about them at the link here.

Additionally, the genome to Phenome priority is continuing. The Congressional Subcommittee on Agriculture outlined this continued support for integration and analysis of phenotypic and genetic variation under different environmental conditions, and that can be used across that or that can be used across multiple livestock and crop species to improve agricultural output and efficiency. Additionally, NIFA has encouraged to is encouraged to prioritize research that advances advances in information fermentation mitigation solutions.

So this would be like feed additives, methane inhibiting vaccines, breeding for a a methane cattle or direct fe fed modified microorganisms to manage that methane output from cows. There’s lots of other priorities outlined in the appropriations bill draft. And I’ll have links at the end of the presentation to a lot of these, items as well. So NIH is the second largest contributor of federal funding dollars issue after USDA. In -id August, the agency released a statement sharing its updates to its mission, including the following priorities.

So they are prioritize training for future by biomedical scientists on replication and reproducibility in science real world data platforms AI, nutrition, and furthering the understanding of autism. Alternative testing models so human based and more human centric, models of disease, as well as promoting research focused on scientifically valid, measurable health outcomes, shifting to solution oriented approaches in health disparities research,

improving oversight of NIH funds to foreign research institutions, ensuring evidence based health care for children and teenagers who are identifying as transgender, and implementing advances in the HIV AIDS research. So these are all listed in that linked document, advancing NIH’s mission through a unified strategy, and you can read more about them in detail in that document. As much as possible, I’d hoped to share published updates for any agency mission and goals.

The NIH is still kind of in the process of updating, officially updating their goals on their site. In August 2023, they posted a, request for information soliciting suggestions and, the links for the results to that RFI are not working on the site right now. They also announced this simplified review framework. This has been in the works since at least December 2022.

And only affect specific grant activity codes. But the change should not necessarily require action by applicants. But it will affect how your proposals are reviewed. So I would suggest checking that out. Additionally, you can learn more about updates to fellowship applications and the review process at that link on the page, there. And then, like the USDA, NIH has released specific guidance regarding their response to the gain of function executive order.

And you can read that in the notice link to the bottom of this page.

I also want to touch on the recent Supreme Court decision. Mid-August, SCOTUS released decision that NIH does not need to continue paying about $783 million on its research grants as that case proceeds to lower courts. They have decided that the disputes must be heard in federal claims court. So, if you have a grant in this space and you already are, I’m sure well aware of this.

We’ll see how, that other, federal disputes for canceled grants continue, continue to resolve. But I also want to outline one of the important priorities outlined by NIH has been to move away from using animal models, and said they’re encouraging researchers to consider in silico or AI approaches. So having a background in behavioral neuroscience, I recognize the value of animal models.

And I balked a little bit when I saw this priority released. But the downstream effects are not going to be that they’re not going to be the NIH no longer funds research the animal that uses animal models. The immediate effects are going to be that they no longer release new funding opportunities that focus exclusively on animal models of human disease.

And I think that word exclusive is really important and is used it is used in the in the article I have linked here. In terms of prioritizing human based technologies and models. They’ve indicated that when the priority is important, it will be emphasized in individual NOFOs. We have also heard through the grapevine that the NIH process for reviewing new NOFOs prior to their release will be lengthy, perhaps 12 months.

Again, this is probably in response to the federal grant making executive order, but they have released many forecasted opportunities in Grants.gov. And those continue to be posted and may be used as insight for upcoming opportunities. Just as an example, since the 22nd of January, there’s been only 48 posted opportunities so posted meaning active. Compared to 259 forecasted opportunities.

What what the timeline trajectory is for those forecasted opportunities is is still up in the air.

I wanted to, talk briefly about the dangerous gain of function executive order. If you are concerned that your work may qualify under dangerous gain as function, you want to consider whether it affects or whether it meets any of the following items here. So does it enhance the harmful consequences of an agent or toxin?

Does it disrupt immune responses? Does it confer resistance? Does it increased stability, transmissibility, or dissemination? Does it alter host range or tropism? Does it enhance susceptibility, especially of the human population? And are you reconstructing an eradicated or extinct agent? If you’re still unsure about this. Please reach out to our office and or your program officer, and we, or they will be happy to help you.

Now I’ll move on to NSF. In their presidential budget, AI, quantum information sciences, and translational science science were highlighted. The agency itself has removed any DEIA language and broadening and their broadening participation initiative. But these actions really do don’t mean that overlooked populations should be excluded. Rather, that all populations should be allowed an equal opportunity to participate in the study.

They’re emphasizing, their focus on support for the TIP or Technology Innovations and Partnerships Directorate which whose mission is to accelerate bringing scientific discovery, to public use. Their flagship program is, the innovation Regional Innovation Engines program, which is unique in many respects. But one of the focuses there and in a recent recent session, held by NSF and the New America Foundation

they discussed that the goal of the regional innovations and engine to become self-sustaining and foster growth in regional industries was, hugely backed across the aisle between Republicans and Democrats. And the example that they gave was an investment from the federal government, 135 million at this time when the program has only been active for, I believe, two years.

It has already brought in over 1.5 billion in matching, funds from sources other than the federal government. Any work, with a STEM workforce development component has implications for our national security. So bringing complex manufacturing processes, materials discovery, and data science jobs back to U.S. soil reduces the reliance on foreign partners for essential technologies and services.

And so, are going to be that’s going to be a huge advantage in your research. It may become even more essential to convey this translational relevance in even when contested, conducting basic research. And the primary takeaway is this potential potential for a shift in NSF to focus, from focusing on basic to translational science if the current administration’s priorities are continued.

I think it’s also important to mention that the agency still may be reorganizing its divisions. I haven’t heard anything to that effect recently. The directorates do appear to be remaining as is, but they did reduce their senior executive service personnel from 153 to 59. So basically, what this means for you is that, you’re probably going to have slower response times from program officers, but that’s kind of our best guess.

Additionally, we have heard through the grapevine that you will likely start to see NSF converting their solicitations to more broad program descriptions.

As far as research priorities, NSF is supporting and implementing AI in pretty much all aspects of the research process. For their Programable Cloud Laboratories program, they gave an example of using AI to assist in selecting drug targets and the drug formulation itself, to then having an autonomous lab perform efficacy testing with AI used to troubleshoot, and then using AI to help identify next steps.

So they want these automated labs to be available to users across academic, industry and private settings with built in workforce development plans to train essential staff. Additionally, congressional appropriations do encourage NSF to fund research aimed at improving transparency, interpretability, and explainability of AI. This also extends to advancing foundational AI across multiple disciplines, which is already happening at WSU.

NSF is also continuing its priority of biotechnology biotechnology research, with a particular focus on synthetic biology or bioengineering. Especially as these pertain to research pipeline work, which basically means work that spans the fundamental research space to workforce development, leading to societal benefit. So what is the impact of that research? The Congressional Appropriations Committee also outlined, advanced manufacturing as a research priority for NSF.

So robotics sensing technology and breakthroughs in materials manufacturing were all highlighted under this priority. Microelectronics and semiconductors continues to be an NSF research priority, especially because it’s related to the Chips and Science Act. And then we’ve heard consistently from both USDA and NSF that you should continue reaching out to program officers. Between DOGE cuts and reorganizations at the agencies proposals are it does seem that proposers are waiting a lot longer for responses.

Again, this is anecdotal evidence. But they’re still hearing from their program officers. Most staff at this level, it seems, are not necessarily new to the agencies. So even if they’re not responding as quickly, quickly, they know kind of the lay of the land in most cases and should be able to give good feedback. So keep reaching out to your program officers.

Just like the other agencies DOE has removed any DEIA language and programing throughout the agency and its solicitations. For those of you who follow DOE, I’m sure you’ve seen the push to unleash Unleash American Energy, American Energy Dominance and the removal or toning down of any climate change affiliated programing. Even though they’ve gone through this refocus, onto American fossil fuels, it’s not the only energy source that’s prioritized.

At this time, they are instead of seeking alternative energy sources like wind and solar, which are considered intermittent sources, they’re heavily prioritizing LNG, petroleum and other fossil fuel derivatives, obviously, but there is still focus on certain non intermittent energy sources like nuclear, hydropower, hydrogen, geothermal and hybrid nuclear-geothermal. The Office of Electricity itself is continuing to, pursue enhancing green technologies and resilience, particularly as it applies to requirements of energy intensive facilities like data centers that are going to be coming be becoming even more important for, expanding AI functionality.

The Office of Electricity is encouraged, I believe in the Congressional Appropriations Act to engage with power utilities regardless of ownership, so public, private or co-op utilities, to help communities increase infrastructure resiliency, safety and accessibility. Additionally, the hydrogen hubs program is still it still plays a critical role in, DOE Priorities. And it it really relates to the goal of achieving energy independence in the United States.

And the congressional subcommittee does direct continued emphasis in this area, especially refueling infrastructure and collaboration with industry in the hydrogen’s hydrogen fuel space. The last, focus area that I’m going to mention with DOE is critical critical mineral research. And this is energy research related to extraction, processing and manufacturing to advance sectors in the U.S that are currently dominated, especially by China and the other and other countries.

Additional research areas, under this umbrella include battery, battery materials and processing, manufacturing and cycling, and recovery of critical minerals from industrial waste water, I believe that one is an ARPA-E solicitation. So this is one of the few areas, that we’re consistently seeing solicitations being released in the wake of the grant making executive order at the beginning of August.

The last agency I’m going to discuss is the Department of Defense. So, like all other federal agencies, they have the recent executive orders have been incorporated into agency practice. They’ve also experienced cuts to federal research funding, just like all other agencies, although maybe DoD has experienced a little bit less, in their case, it appears to be more due to, lack of congressional earmarks in the budget, rather than the appropriations process.

I think it’s safe to assume, that there will still be increased competition for DoD funding just like the other agencies. If you are considering applying to DoD please consider taking a look at their Risk to be Risk-Based Decision Matrix for Fundamental Research. They’ve designed this to really help increase transparency at the agency and to hopefully increase understanding of how proposals are evaluated, and especially in the light of national security concerns.

Finally, for the remaining funds for DoD, there are a few congressional priority areas for research that, like I believe was USDA, we discussed are well aligned with research at WSU. DoD award dollars currently make up the smallest proportion of funding from the top five federal agencies to WSU. So there’s a lot of room for growth here

at our university. The advanced materials, hypersonics and microelectronics priority aligns well with WSU’s next generation materials and advanced manufacturing research strength. WSU also has a well-established cybersecurity program and conducts extensive research in biotech and human performance. Quantum science at WSU has a smaller, established group of faculty. particularly in the physics, but they’re particularly located in the physics and astronomy department.

If you’re thinking of expanding your research portfolio to include anything kind of quantum related, now may be a great time. It’s also a research priority, for NSF.

Okay. So in addition to being aware of updated agency priorities, congressional and congressional priorities, there are a few reminders, that we want to mention for WSU faculty and the greater research community. So there’s been a lot of focus in the research community, at WSU and, and the broader research community on the implications of these two executive orders.

The first one is Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing, and the second one is Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity. As we’ve discussed, these two opportunities are these two executive orders have prompted agency assessment and ongoing awards for compliance as well as existing solicitations, and has resulted in award terminations and understandable apprehension about how to discuss research, prompt programs involving or focusing on certain populations.

One of the things that proposers can do right now is focus on the fundamental purpose of a research program if you’re working with those specific groups, and to focus on serving frequently overlooked populations, or to better understand how X serves all people. A great reference if you are concerned about your research, is to fall back on WSU, the land grant mission.

Our land grant mission keeps us committed to the principles of practical education for all scholarly inquiry that benefits society, and the sharing of expertise to positively impact the state and communities. Our land grant mission has been in place long before any of these executive orders came to light, so it’s not a reactionary thing. Your work is likely already fulfilling this mission if it serves a representative sample of the study region, or it serves a cross-section of the population in the region of focus for your program.

If you do have any further questions, if you’d like a non-specialist set of eyes to review your proposal, or it can simply help sometimes to talk through these challenges with somebody outside of your normal circle, the team. I’m on at Advancement and Partnerships and the Office of Research can help with this.

WSU. I want to, again discuss the, the two executive orders. WSU is has is and has always been in compliance with civil rights laws. As many of you are aware, there has been a lot of back and forth between federal agencies regarding the the certification certification requirement that you’re not conducting illegal DEI. I’m thinking specifically NIH, there was a notice that was issued and rescinded and issued and rescinded several times.

It’s important as faculty to remember that you’re certifying compliance or certifying compliance is an institutional and not an individual requirement. So WSU, is very aware of this and has been actively addressing it. The Compliance and Civil Rights team at WSU conducted a university wide audit, and they’re working with individual colleges and units to affirm that they’re in compliance.

They’ve also developed a self-assessment tool I’ve linked here for departments to use to support university compliance with title six and title seven of the Civil Rights Acts and title nine title nine and Washington state law. If you have any further questions in this space, please contact the WSU CCR team. They should be able to answer them for you.

As we conclude the presentation, I want to leave you with the following considerations. Continue applying for funding. WSU really has been doing a great job keeping up the proposal pressure, and we need to keep keep this up. Be aware that there will probably be tighter deadlines on proposals moving forward. Using agency’s published priorities, forecasted opportunities and general agency information

May help anticipate solicitations or what’s required of solicitations, and keep your supplemental documents as updated as possible. Finally, consider diversifying your opportunities for funding by working with new collaborators. We’re already hearing about a lot of WSU faculty doing this, which is awesome. All faculty are kind of in the same boat. And so, reaching out and forming new partnerships is really great

And, it will continue to be really beneficial as you apply for funding opportunities. Finally, I have some helpful resources linked if you are at all interested, I think these are all kind of relevant to what we’ve discussed. The American Association for the Advancement of Science has put together a really great dashboard summarizing the status of fiscal year 26, congressional appropriations.

That is linked in the middle, I believe or sorry, that’s the link at the bottom of the page. These appropriations, like I said earlier, are pending until the federal budget is signed into law. The status table that is linked here is, maintained by Congress and provides links to all the subcommittee, committee and floor appropriations bills.

So and viewing these relevant appropriations bills will show how federal agencies are directed to use funds. Basically, you can infer what types of projects the agencies are going to be encouraged to prioritize. Though you should expect to on longer response times, you’re still encouraged to reach out to your program officers. Even though there’s been reorganization in the agencies and a reduction in force, program officers are typically still dedicated to their respective areas and want to answer your questions.

There are potentially situations where responses are being monitored by, or required to be approved by DOGE officials, which obviously can cause delay. But keep reaching out to them. I’m not going to go through all of these links, but, I have several hopefully relevant links for HHS, NSF, and DOE. And with that, I would be happy to take any questions you may have.