José Zevallos, MD, MPH, chair of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and interim chair of the Hillman Cancer Center there, said the announcement of a plan for a 15% cap in the indirect rate at first felt like “an existential crisis.” Then things continued as they were for a while, until two R01 grants were lost because the Trump administration began pulling funding for research associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
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September 2025The grants have nothing to do with DEI, but they were awarded from a pool of funding designed to promote workforce diversity, so they were flagged, Dr. Zevallos said. One of the studies is looking at gene therapy for congenital hearing loss, and the other is looking at the brain’s perception of cochlear implants in pursuit of ways to restore hearing more effectively.
He said the department and the university have been exploring other sources of funding, including philanthropy, industry, and even entrepreneurship, as a way to raise money for research aims. They have also been assessing how to share resources better, such as consolidating labs. Plans for a translational hearing institute—a center in which clinics and research labs would be together in one space—have been put on hold, even though the prospect of the institute was a factor in the recent recruiting of new researchers to his center, Dr. Zevallos said. And there has been “a lot of discussion of trying to limit the number of people who have unfunded research,” he said.
“This gets into really difficult conversations because suddenly you’re saying, ‘Hey, listen, you’re a valued member of this department because you bring this educational component, this teaching component, but right now you’re low on your funding,’” Dr. Zevallos said. “It’s very hard to tell somebody, “We have to let you go because you happen not to be funded.” And we’re not there yet by any means, but that’s the risk. As this becomes more real, we’re going to really hyperfocus on our people who have the most funding. And we will inherently lose the diversity of our researchers.”
The effects years down the line could be dramatic, he said.
“We also have a real chance of losing a generation of academic investigators,” he said. “Because the jobs that are going to be attractive to people who are doing science are going to be industry jobs.”
Reports that the NIH might fund research projects with lump-sum payments up front, rather than year by year, were jarring, said David O. Francis, MD, MS, professor of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery and vice chair of academic affairs and professional development at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. That’s because this way of funding could diminish the chances that a grant proposal would succeed; for instance, an estimate is that at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), one in 25 applicants will be funded, down from one in 10 (Science. https://tinyurl.com/4dymezt9).
“Established investigators may be able to pull off a score that’s high enough to get funded,” Dr. Francis said. “But someone who’s just coming up, like a junior investigator who may not have as much experience, may not be able to achieve a score that high, and then it kind of shuts down their ambitions about potentially becoming a researcher in the future.”
One of his own projects would be “on the cusp” in that scenario, he said. It is an NCI-funded study on developing models to predict the real-world effects on outcomes of thyroid cancer policy so that policy can be crafted in a more meaningful way.
Given the unknowns, no concrete changes have been made in his department, he said, although there is planning in the background, including ideas on bridge funding for affected studies.
“I think the implications are pretty big and are going to impact biomedical research in the long run,” he said. “Everyone’s kind of on edge about what’s going to happen.”
Bradley Goldstein, MD, PhD, professor of head and neck surgery and communication sciences at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and research coordinator for the Triological Society, said the society’s grant programs could help some researchers.
The Triological Society continues to use resources to provide research funding support to help augment otolaryngology research programs where we can. I want to emphasize that our grant programs remain available, and we look to partner with otolaryngologists, especially at early career stages, as much as we can to help provide research support and mentorship. —Bradley Goldstein, MD, PhD
Sad, but true.
As a former clinical assistant professor, I had an agreement to have protected time to perform research in 2008. Due to illness and a change in staffing, I lost that protected time. My clinical services were needed, and my research time was taken away. I resolved to make my teaching and clinical services my priorities. When the affected individual returned to work later in 2009, my reward was that I was given more teaching responsibilities and no time or funding for research. As I scrambled for grants and contacted industries to help support funding after the economic downturn of 2008 and 2009, I came to realize that the likelihood for funding was gone. Without prior research or publications, no funding was available to support time off from clinical work for independent research. This did not stop me from continuing my clinical work and research, once I left the world of academia. I became self-funded by dedicating a percentage of my salary to research purposes.
I believe that self-funding is the way to go. If Universities will not use their endowments to invest in research at their institutions where their review boards approve the research, then why should the janitorial staff that cleans the research buildings pay for the research with their tax dollars. If Departments of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery are dedicated to researchers, then use clinical dollars to support the research that needs to be done. Shift funds generated from ancillary personnel, such as NP’s and PA’s and Fellows, to a core research fund. Researchers need to be held accountable for the costs of their studies for there are no more blank checks.