NIH cuts impact Ohio grants with $16.75M loss

OHIO, USA — More than 30 National Institutes of Health grants in Ohio have been impacted by recent cuts at the federal level. 

Thirty-two NIH grants are currently being impacted and eight NIH grants have been reinstated for an estimated loss of $16.75 million, according to Grant Witness, a project that tracks the termination of grants of scientific research agencies under President Donald Trump’s administration. 

More than 5,110 NIH grants have been impacted, totaling $4.52 billion lost, according to Grant Witness. 1,290 grants have been reinstated. 

The United States Supreme Court recently allowed NIH to terminate $783 million in grants tied to diversity initiatives.

NIH ended hundreds of grants linked to DEI studies earlier this year after a series of Trump executive orders. Two separate groups of plaintiffs went to federal court in Massachusetts to challenge the termination of the NIH grants and a federal judge ruled in their favor, but U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the Supreme Court to intervene. 

Ohio’s affected grants, according to Grant Witness.

• Case Western Reserve University has nine grants affected, including one that could be possibly reinstated.
• Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has two grants affected.
• Kent State University has one grant affected.
• Ohio State University has 18 grants, including six that could be possibly reinstated and one with frozen funding.
• The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital has three grants affected.
• The University of Cincinnati has six grants affected, including one that could be possibly reinstated.
• The University of Toledo has one grant affected.

The Ohio Capital Journal reached out to all affected universities and hospitals, but most of them did not respond by deadline. 

“We have not experienced the sweeping reductions in funding that have been proposed for some other institutions,” Ohio State University Spokesperson Ben Johnson said in an email. “When you look across our entire portfolio, we have not had a significant number of grants canceled. However, each cancellation is significant to the researchers involved and we are working to support those individuals.”

Ohio State’s research portfolio totaled $1.6 billion last year and about $775 million of that was federal funding, he said. 

The University of Toledo acknowledged a NIH grant was terminated and university spokesperson Tyrel Linkhorn said there were no layoffs associated with the termination. 

In addition, Ohio University has been notified of two NIH sub-awards totaling $13,040 that have received stop-work orders, university spokesperson Dan Pittman said. 

“Ohio University leaders will continue to assess evolving guidance from federal agencies and provide additional details and guidance as needed; during this time, we encourage all (OU) researchers to continue their efforts to explore research opportunities and to pursue funding,” he said in an email.

The types of NIH grants affected in Ohio range from studying the long-term effects of COVID, vaccine hesitancy in rural communities, inflammatory bowel disease, bisexual adolescents’ and young adults’ risk for depression and suicidal ideation, minority women’s mental health and creating healthy habits for heart health, among others. 

“The cuts to the NIH funding … are going to severely reduce the amount of research that universities in Ohio are able to engage in,” Sara Kilpatrick, executive director of the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors. “And this, of course, is a problem nationwide, but this is a great concern for our research institutions in the state of Ohio.” 

This will hurt local economies and Ohio’s economy as a whole, she said. 

“I think that anybody who understands the kind of economic engines that our universities are has to be able to see the way that this is going to severely undermine the research missions of our universities,” Kilpatrick said.