Legal Action to Halt Proposed NIH Cuts

To: The Caltech Community
From: Thomas F. Rosenbaum, President; David A. Tirrell, Provost; Jennifer Lum, General Counsel

Caltech today joined with the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), the American Council on Education (ACE), and several of America's leading research universities in filing a lawsuit challenging the actions by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to implement a harmful and irreparably damaging, across-the-board cut to indirect costs for National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding.

The action follows Friday evening's NIH announcement of new guidance that would reduce the indirect cost recovery rate for all new NIH awards as well as all existing awards as of today, February 10, 2025, to 15 percent. Indirect costs account for the actual costs of essential components of the research enterprise, including facilities and utilities. Caltech receives millions of dollars annually in indirect costs to help fulfill its social compact for discovery in the taxpayer and national interest. Implemented across the nation's academic research centers, the reduction would have devastating impacts to U.S. scientific research, jeopardizing and destabilizing the nation's leading medical science and health care programs.

Indirect costs are a central component of an enduring partnership between the federal government and universities to support U.S. leadership and to advance investigations, studies, and discoveries that have the potential to improve and save lives. Relying on this partnership, universities have made significant and continuing investments in the facilities, instrumentation, and professional staff required to conduct forefront research, and to educate the graduate students and postdoctoral scholars who ensure the United States' continued preeminence in science, engineering, and innovation.

At Caltech, NIH awards support critically important medical research upon which millions of Americans depend. With the support of NIH funds, Caltech researchers are advancing the diagnosis and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders, creating tools to improve imaging of tumors, developing new strategies for engineering therapeutic antibodies for treatment of viral infections, and providing new insights into the origins of addiction, birth defects, Parkinson's disease, and other disorders.  

These are just a few examples of the projects that are supported with the NIH investment in Caltech research, and provide a sense of what we stand to lose with the proposed shift in the funding of academic and clinical research.

We take seriously the threat of these reductions to the nation's research ecosystem and to the programs of inquiry, research, and innovation that are central to our national well-being. We continue to monitor and respond to federal directives and policy changes, and we will share information on such actions and the steps we are taking as appropriate.

We will not be deterred in our efforts to make a compelling case for Caltech research. We will continue to work in partnership with other leading research universities, consortia, and colleagues, as we explore and develop new ways to improve the human condition.