Today, that future is challenged due to recent and proposed cuts to federal research funding that could dramatically slow the pace of scientific progress. As Barbara Snyder, president of the Association of American Universities wrote in response to initial federal actions freezing federal research funding, “This...not only sets us back against global competitors; it is also a significant loss for people at home. It means the country stops its scientific work designed to help farmers do better by increasing yields and fighting crop disease and extreme weather. It means the nation puts on hold the scientific discoveries that can boost manufacturing, including new innovations that lead to start up opportunities for new small businesses.”

Abrupt termination of federal funds impede the continuity in multi-year research projects (such as longitudinal health studies or ongoing interventions in schools), and important databases providing critical resources for researchers across the globe may shut down. With recent layoffs of federal employees at agencies like the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Institute for Education Sciences, there are fewer staff to review proposals, delaying funding of competitive grants and increasing time for proposal review, which creates staffing uncertainties within research labs experiencing prolonged waiting periods for grant renewals or awards. From universities to communities to intramural research programs at federal research agencies, everyone feels the loss. 

The University of Oregon is a top 20 employer in the state, but its research enterprise is more than a source of jobs. It is a catalyst, preparing students for careers that drive local economies, bringing new technologies and ideas into the marketplace, improving public health, and helping communities build resilience. 

Walk into any laboratory at the University of Oregon and you will find undergraduates conducting state-of-the-art research that affords them hands-on exposure to science that is impossible to duplicate in the classroom. Working in tandem with graduate students and postdoctoral associates in their laboratories, they get the additional boost of coaching and mentorship, which can have a lifelong impact. 

“It has been well established that undergraduates involved in research have a higher retention rate, are more likely to graduate within a set timeframe, and are more competitive for jobs and graduate programs after graduation,” said Geri Richmond, Presidential Chair in Science and Professor of Chemistry and former National Science Board member who has directed an NSF-funded Summer Undergraduate Research Program (REU) at Oregon since 1987, as well as the Presidential Undergraduate Research Scholars program that specifically targets UO undergraduates during the academic year.  

Whether for a summer job experience or a daily aspect of one’s career, it’s clear that research transforms us. It makes the impossible possible. Its outcomes strengthen the fabric of Oregon’s communities and ensures that opportunities—new businesses, new technologies, better health care, improved education—remain within reach. Even in the face of uncertainty, the University of Oregon remains committed to discovery that serves Oregon and the nation.

We will continue to rise. 

The power of federal research investment is clearest in the ripple effect it creates. 

In a 2022 study of investments made by the U.S. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, a UO professor and colleagues found that for every patent produced by SBIR grant recipients, three more are produced by others who benefit from spillovers—technology that helps other innovators. 

Lauren Lanahan, associate professor of management in the Lundquist College of Business, centers her research on the role of public institutions in understanding the evolving, multifaceted research and development enterprise. In the study, she wrote: “Sixty percent of these spillovers occur within the U.S., and many of them occur in technological areas substantially different from those targeted by the grants.” 

At the University of Oregon, the ripples of federal investment radiate outward. 

UO startup company Penderia Technologies received a $1.7 million SBIR Phase II grant last year to further develop its implantable wireless sensor technology. UO spinout company Northwest Prevention Science received a $295,000 SBIR Phase I grant in 2024 to develop and test an asynchronous, online training program for health care providers implementing Family Check-Up Online—a digital, web-based application designed to improve family mental health, child behavior, and family relationships. 

Today, 29 companies have roots in UO intellectual property, including Floragenex, which provides genomic services for plant and animal researchers and VivoTex, which creates microfiber scaffolds that can be used in biomedical applications.  

The University of Oregon is committed to being a leader in career preparation. Large and small businesses, start-ups, nonprofits, and government offices and agencies seek UO graduates for their ability to contribute, innovate, and lead in the modern workplace and in our broader society. 

Significant cuts to university research funding would slow this momentum, shrinking the innovation ecosystem, stalling job growth, and limiting economic opportunity and development across Oregon. 

Sometimes, transformative discoveries begin unexpectedly.

There can be many steps between having an idea, setting up an experiment, and the “a-ha!” moment.  

In 1981, geneticist and University of Oregon professor George Streisinger revolutionized biomedical research when he established zebrafish as a new experimental organism to study the health and disease of vertebrate animals, including ourselves. Zebrafish research programs are now a fixture of universities the world over.  

What is basic research? 
The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) primarily fund “basic” research, which as it turns out isn’t so basic at all. In fact, it’s the opposite of the slang meaning of the word in that basic research lays the foundation for understanding how something works. It is the production of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, whether it’s to better understand how molecules function or why ecosystems need apex predators. 

Basic research is often considered too “risky” by for-profit companies, who instead rely on universities to produce the base level of knowledge that will later power innovation and “applied” research. Indeed, funding from NSF is the reason you can get an MRI scan or read this article on the internet. Basic research brought us Doppler radar, supercomputers and semiconductors, and the ability to sense black holes and gravitational waves. These cornerstones of modern life started in university experiments funded by the government. 

“The applied (or ‘translational’) research that leads to the development of life-saving medicines and vaccines and other types of medical treatments can be carried out and supported by privately funded pharmaceutical and biotech companies,” said Peter von Hippel, professor of biophysical chemistry and molecular biology and member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. “But the research work of these companies is only possible if basic researchers have first shown how the functioning system works and what can go wrong at the molecular level that could lead to the development of disease. If we lose our funding of this basic research, the derivative research leading to the treatment of disease will also wither away and with it our nation’s worldwide leadership in applied biomedical science will vanish as well.” 

A key to the power of zebrafish is that their genetic makeup is remarkably similar to humans—approximately 85% of human disease-associated genes are present and function similarly in zebrafish and humans. The ease of studying zebrafish, combined with these genetic parallels, allows researchers to readily translate their discoveries into new understanding and treatments for human health and disease. 

But that achievement was built on 20 years of painstaking work; the highlights reel of science can obscure the long days in the laboratory. University of Oregon scientists have leveraged an initial NSF award in the mid-1970s into decades of research funding, much of it from NIH. That investment has led to breakthrough revelations about scoliosis, the gut microbiome, the genetic basis of rare diseases, and clues to the genetic origins of muscle disorders in humans—and these successes were just at the UO. But the germination point of the zebrafish research program that spawned life-changing discoveries flourished in large part because of the willingness of UO faculty to pool financial resources and research findings—a true demonstration of the power of team science. 

What is a model organism? 
A model organism is a creature with short generations, its genome has been characterized, or whose biology is similar to humans and is used to study genetic traits or diseases—examples include the fruit fly, the zebrafish, and pigs. Scientists have worked with model organisms to understand how DNA replicates, how diseases attack or mutate cells, and to develop vaccines and other treatments. Though the zebrafish is now ubiquitous in research labs, when George Streisinger proposed its use as a model organism, he had to first rely on his fellow faculty to fund his research from their own grants to prove the zebrafish’s utility to NSF. 

Scientists like Judith Eisen, a member of the National Academy of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, have in turn trained thousands of students to become the next generation of scientists who uncover the mysteries behind genetic mutations and diseases. But the impact of zebrafish research stretches beyond the UO: As of this writing, there are 1,770 laboratories around the world listed in the Zebrafish Information Network (ZFIN), a service located on the UO campus and the database of genetic and genomic data for zebrafish. The information sharing ZFIN enables means that scientists thousands of miles apart are able to collaborate and share ideas, which in turn leads to faster discoveries. UO also hosts the zebrafish stock center that supplies fish to laboratories around the globe. 

Breakthroughs in biomedical science require a steady pipeline of researchers.

Today, resources that fuel that pipeline are being diminished. 

At the University of Oregon, numerous pre-doctoral training awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been terminated. The only difference between the awards that were canceled and those that haven’t been is that the terminated awards specifically funded students from historically underrepresented backgrounds. These awards weren’t just financial support; they were critical opportunities for students to build careers in biomedical research.

For example, a diversity supplement, which is intended to help attract trainees and faculty from underrepresented groups to research careers, had allowed Ian Greenhouse, assistant professor of human physiology, to hire a predoctoral student to assist him with his NIH-funded research on healthy and disordered motor function and lead to the identification of new therapeutic targets for the treatment of motor impairments like Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, and stroke. 

Despite the student meeting every milestone, the funding was cut in an initial wave of NIH terminations. The loss of the supplement not only affects the ability of Greenhouse’s lab to conduct research benefiting primarily elderly Americans within the timeframe allowed by the grant, but it also cuts resources supporting the student’s training goals. 

“We worked hard to win this award, and it was a launchpad for this student,” Greenhouse said. “They met every stipulation in the original award notice, including the submission of their own NIH training fellowship application. Despite all our invested efforts, this student will no longer have the protected time to devote to the project. Imagine being promised support for three years of your life to build something meaningful, and clearly demonstrating success, then in the last year getting the money taken away. It’s crushing.”

The effects of grant terminations extend beyond one lab. 

The UO PREP Bio program is an NIH-funded, post-baccalaureate research training program serving scholars from groups that have historically had lower participation in health-related sciences than others on their journey to advanced biomedical degree programs. NIH Postbaccalaureate Research Education Programs (PREP), across the country, including the UO's, received termination notices in early spring. 

In 2023, pediatric health providers and the US Surgeon General declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health.

The University of Oregon is addressing this critical need by accelerating education and research to train the next generation of behavioral health specialists, teachers, and counselors and develop novel tools and assessments to facilitate effective interventions. 

The UO brings exceptional strengths in fields central and complementary to children’s behavioral health and education, including psychology, teacher training, and the development of assessment tools and programs. Indeed, many of the primary educational assessment tools used in more than 29,000 schools across the country—in every state and 10 territories and jurisdictions—were developed by researchers in the College of Education. 

The University of Oregon is a national leader in education research, ranking first among all universities in the nation for the number of Institute for Education Sciences (IES, part of the US Department of Education) awards secured since the institute’s founding in 2002. 

But critical research work and community partnerships are now at risk. 

At least 24 proposals submitted by UO researchers to IES remain unreviewed following the federal cancellation of the peer review contract that supports funding decisions. There is no published timeline for resuming reviews, leaving important and timely work in limbo. Across IES, research competitions have been paused, funding has been delayed, and core agency functions have been stalled. 

This disruption hits Oregon particularly hard. 

The University of Oregon College of Education has spent years building a nationally competitive model that tightly integrates research, service, and student training to align closely with IES and National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) priorities. Today, the College of Education maintains active partnerships with more than 300 schools and agencies in Oregon and across the country, supporting evidence-based services for students and families and providing students with hands-on training in the field. These relationships rely on sustained federal funding to continue. 

Restructuring of federal education research support and programming disrupts ongoing services in schools and weakens the pipeline of future educators and behavioral health professionals, slowing progress at a time when Oregon is still recovering from the pandemic’s impact on education, special education services, and children’s mental health. And the longer the disruption lasts, the harder—and more costly—it will be to rebuild. 

Each year more than 13 million Americans think about suicide, more than 1.5 million attempt suicide, and nearly 50,000 die by suicide. 

At the University of Oregon, Lauren Forrest, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, was working to better understand suicide risk among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (i.e., “sexual minority”) Americans who live in rural areas—a group that experiences suicidal thoughts and behaviors three to six times more frequently than heterosexual Americans, and for whom suicide is the leading cause of death. Her research, supported by a prestigious NIH K08 career development award, aimed to uncover factors that drive risk and inform more effective prevention strategies. 

In March 2025, Forrest’s grant received a termination notice, halting this critical work.

Without this research, underserved communities remain at heightened risk, and a rare effort to address one of the nation’s most urgent public health challenges has been cut short. Sexual minority Americans now make up nearly 10% of the U.S. population, according to Gallup, yet studies like Forrest’s remain scarce. 

Across Oregon, research strengthens the systems that keep communities safe. 

It prepares us for disaster.

Wildfire detection and situational awareness cameras operated by the University of Oregon’s Oregon Hazards Lab (OHAZ); the University of Nevada, Reno; and ALERTCalifornia at the University of California, San Diego are integrated through the ALERTWest platform, enabling an unprecedented level of interoperability between monitoring systems and making real-time data more accessible to wildland firefighters. 

Any member of the public can view camera feeds at the ALERTWest website. Firefighters, emergency managers, and other qualified personnel are provided with early alerts to fire starts and camera control access to guide response and suppression. 

OHAZ operates more than 60 wildfire detection cameras across Oregon and uses their multi-purpose data network to maintain more than 220 seismic monitoring stations that contribute to the ShakeAlert early warning system, enabling rapid, life-saving earthquake alerts for people and communities across the state. 

A recent grant from the National Science Foundation established the first subduction zone earthquake center in the US at the University of Oregon. The Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center (CRESCENT) uses high performance computing and artificial intelligence-assisted modeling and research to help communities in the Cascadia region fortify against earthquakes and related disasters that can occur in tandem: tsunamis, landslides, aftershocks, liquefaction, and fires. 

But federal procurement and travel restrictions have delayed cooperative work for the planning, siting, installation and maintenance of seismic and wildfire monitoring stations, reducing Oregon’s ability to prepare for and respond to future disasters. 

The humanities fields help us understand cultures, our ethical and moral foundations, and how our relationships with the environment impact us—and vice versa. The humanities give us insight into the fascinating ways there are to be human, and humanities research helps us understand how our lives are enmeshed and interconnected, with other people and with the natural world. 

The University of Oregon ranks in the top 10% of universities nationally for non-STEM federal humanities research expenditures, and its scholars have helped communities across Oregon preserve cultural heritage, foster public dialogue, and strengthen global engagement through programs like Fulbright, leading to high international rankings as well.

The University of Oregon has a long history with the Fulbright program: Since 1950, the UO has produced 313 Fulbright scholars and 281 Fulbright students, while accepting 193 Fulbright visiting scholars and 109 visiting Fulbright students, placing the university in the top 10% in the nation. 

Humanities research goes beyond languages, culture, and civics. As AI takes over routine tasks, the U.S. workforce must respond with skills that no computer possesses: the ability to think critically, make ethical decisions with emotional intelligence, and work with a team to creatively solve the complex problems facing society. These skills are often nurtured through classroom discussions and are found in the pages of great literature and historical texts.

Before modern fire suppression methods, Native American forest management practices helped shape fire-resilient landscapes in the Pacific Northwest. 

One UO grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which has received a termination notice, involved documenting traditional forest management practices used by Native Americans in the Western Cascades with the goal of aiding future natural resource policymaking—as the fire season in the American West grows longer each year, innovating on land management practices is necessary. 

Michael Coughlan, associate research professor and co-director of the Ecosystem Workforce Program, partnered with the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Klamath Tribes to document tree species change and extent in the absence of the regular burning regime that these communities undertook before colonization.

The research team had already documented more than 200 culturally modified trees, many still living after hundreds of years, that show how Indigenous people sustainably managed ponderosa pine as a food resource while they were also burning the landscape—in some cases at least every three years. 

The project, which was one year into the two-year grant period, also focused on collecting and preserving data about both the long-term dynamics of hunter-gatherer land use, settlement, and mobility in the PNW, as well as building more accurate knowledge of the ways in which Indigenous peoples structured the evolution of the American landscape. 

With funding now at risk, so is this vital research, and with it, an opportunity to better protect Oregon’s forests and communities. 

For 75 years, American universities and federal agencies have worked in lockstep to create a research ecosystem that is the envy of the world. The University of Oregon plays a vital role in that ecosystem, training the next generation and creating knowledge. Research transforms economies and catalyzes innovation. Research transforms problems into solutions.

Strengthening research today ensures strong economies, healthier environments, and safer and more resilient communities tomorrow.