Trump Admin’s $9 Billion Review of Harvard’s Grants Could Hit Boston’s Hospitals Hardest

The Trump administration’s sweeping federal review of nearly $9 billion in multi-year research funding tied to Harvard has sparked uncertainty across the University — but the brunt of the planned cuts may be felt by Boston hospitals, not the University.

Five independent Boston hospitals affiliated with Harvard Medical School — Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center — collectively received more than $1.56 billion in National Institutes of Health funding in fiscal year 2024.

That figure is more than double the $686 million the University received from the federal government at large in the same year.

The Trump administration’s funding review stems from an investigation launched by the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, which has accused Harvard of failing to adequately address antisemitic incidents on campus.

While the alleged violations are largely related to Harvard College and the University’s Cambridge campus, the consequences could fall mostly on the hospitals.

The Crimson analyzed the proposed Trump administration funding cuts and estimated that the five hospitals’ multi-year commitment from the NIH is over $6.2 billion and the University’s multi-year federal research funding exceeds $2.7 billion.

The combined figure nears the $9 billion cited by federal officials, but it remains unclear if the funding review is limited to these select grants.

The methodology utilized a four-year projection based on fiscal year 2024, since Harvard and its affiliates would not face an immediate single-year loss of $9 billion, as most federal research awards span three to five years.

These hospitals — despite employing Harvard Medical School faculty and co-sponsoring research projects — are not governed by the University and are not backed by Harvard’s $53.2 billion endowment. Instead, they operate as financially independent nonprofits, with federal grants comprising a large share of their research budgets.

In an email to Harvard affiliates on Monday, University President Alan M. Garber ’76 confirmed that the nearly $9 billion in multi-year federal grants supported “Harvard and other institutions, including hospitals in our community.” Garber cautioned that the loss of that funding would “halt life-saving research.”

Jonathan C. Kagan, director of basic research and chair of gastroenterology at BCH, criticized the response from academic leaders at Harvard.

“Before any budget cuts have even been made, academic leaders have stalled hiring, stalled expansions, stalled research conferences and graduate student admissions,” Kagan wrote in a statement to The Crimson.

“Stated differently, our academic leaders are following the White House in cutting research opportunities,” he added.

University Spokesperson Sarah Kennedy O’Reilly declined to comment on whether the University plans to support these institutions during the funding review.

O’Reilly pointed to Garber’s statement on Monday where he wrote “we resolve to take the measures that will move Harvard and its vital mission forward while protecting our community and its academic freedom.”

MGH was the top-funded hospital in the country by NIH in fiscal year 2024, receiving $655 million. BWH received $388 million, BCH $230 million, Dana-Farber $164 million, and Beth Israel Deaconess $119 million.

All five hospitals ranked among the top ten nationwide in NIH funding.

Sally Rockey, a former deputy director for extramural research at the NIH under the recent Bush and Obama administrations, said the disconnect between the review’s stated purpose of campus antisemitism and its actual target — federally funded biomedical research — is “unprecedented.”

“That relationship between what’s going on in biomedical research versus the stance any particular institution is taking to monitor its antisemitism or other types of activity is really unheard of,” she said.

Rockey explained that it is highly unusual for federal grant oversight to conflate University and hospital-based research funding even in ecosystems like HMS, where clinical and academic boundaries are often blurred.

“There’s a close association with the hospitals, with Mass General and Brigham,” she said. “But in general, they’re not considered affiliated, particularly in the research world.”

“That’s very unheard of, I don’t know how they’re making those links so that they can use that to extend their inquiries,” Rockey added.

Beth Israel Lahey Health spokesperson Sarah Finlaw wrote in a statement to The Crimson that BIDMC administration is monitoring the situation closely.

“Any changes to federal research funding will have a significant impact on our ability to recruit talented clinicians, who have led medical breakthroughs impacting care for patients around the world,” she wrote. “We are aware of the announced review of Harvard and its affiliates by the federal government and continue to monitor the situation.”

A spokesperson for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute declined to comment on how the Institute plans to respond to the review. Spokespeople for MGH, BWH, and BCH did not respond to requests for comment.

Mass General Brigham — the parent organization of MGH and BWH — confirmed internally to its research staff that preparations to respond to funding cancellations are underway.

In a Mar. 20 email obtained by The Crimson addressing funding cancellations at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, MGB Chief Academic Officer Paul Anderson wrote that “a task force composed of senior MGB leadership, physician-scientists and chairs is working to identify immediate strategies and contingency plans to respond to potential funding disruptions and terminations across the organization.”

Still, many researchers said they had not received any direct communication from the various hospitals’ administrations about the $9 billion review since Monday. However, they were provided with general institutional guidance on how to respond if an NIH grant is terminated.

These guidelines instructed principal investigators to immediately halt project activities, notify personnel, initiate formal appeals, and coordinate with oversight bodies to shut down the project.

The hospitals depend on NIH support to fund thousands of active research programs. In 2024 alone, MGH held over 1,000 NIH awards; BWH, 675; DFCI, 243; BIDMC, 215; and BCH had 429.

The grants support a wide range of activities including molecular biology wet labs and late-stage clinical trials. With limited information about which programs fall under the scope of the review, researchers said they are unsure whether their work will be paused, scaled back, or canceled entirely.

“There is much concern among members of our research community as we cope with the national news,” wrote Philip A. Cole, a HMS professor and researcher at BWH.

“We are especially worried about younger scientists, and how the threat of major funding reductions will impact their well-being and outlook,” Cole added.

—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.