Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
Q&A
Canceled research grants and stop work orders
0:31:57
·
3 min
Council Member Brannan inquires about canceled research grants and stop work orders affecting CUNY. Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez and Interim University Provost Alicia Alvero provide details on the situation and CUNY's response.
- CUNY received 78 stop work orders, with 7 rescinded
- $17 million in anticipated research funding is at risk
- Affected research spans various fields, including environmental studies and disease impact on underrepresented populations
- CUNY has created a task force to challenge stop work orders and provide guidance to principal investigators
- The university is considering legal action and working with national organizations to address the issue
Justin Brannan
0:31:57
And do you have an accounting of the latest numbers of the canceled research grants?
0:32:13
So 78 stop work orders on research grants, right?
0:32:16
And what does that amount to?
0:32:18
How much money?
0:32:30
And what kind of research do these grants fund?
0:33:24
That's a good point.
0:33:25
So what is the process for, you know, appealing the stop work orders?
0:33:30
How does that work?
0:34:13
And what's the typical reasoning they give?
0:35:40
Thank you very much chancellor and your team.
0:35:42
I hand it over.
0:35:42
We've been joined by council member Sanchez, and I'm gonna hand it over to chair Dinowitz.
Félix Matos Rodríguez
0:32:02
That we have
0:32:54
And I mean, two things, chair Brennan.
0:32:57
First, we'd be happy to send you and the colleagues a list of what we have.
0:33:02
There's a list that changes every day, right, as we receive new ones.
0:33:07
And also, we've been creating a task force that works with the principal investigators to when we receive one and we think that the grounding for that is not the soundest, we're challenging that.
0:33:19
Also, allowing us the opportunity later to sue, right, by exhausting all.
0:33:30
It varies depending on the agency that's issuing and the rationale.
0:33:35
That's why we built a task force that has personnel from the office of research that reports to the provost.
0:33:42
From each campus office that has the sponsor research office in the campus.
0:33:47
And the research foundation, they look when the work order comes.
0:33:51
And then they give guidance to that PI.
0:33:53
And depending on how the letter is constructed, we provide advice as to you can challenge on these grounds or And in some cases too, the ones where we, you know, they said that we have to start immediately, we also try to provide some bridge funding to keep some of the folks employed.
0:34:16
It's, I mean, it's really tough to to in some, they will cite generic compliance with new executive orders from the federal government.
0:34:28
In other ones, they might be more specific about changes in priorities for the administration.
0:34:34
That's some of the language, for example, that's coming in the recent, the most recent letters from the National Science Foundation.
0:34:42
But again, we are under the provost leadership creating opportunities for bridge funding to support some of the grants.
0:34:50
We are trying to be aggressive in defending when we believe that the grounds for the stoppage is inappropriate.
0:34:58
We're also working at the state level with some of the cases that have been taken, in this case by the state attorney general, against the administration on the indirect for NIH, Department of Energy, and considering NSF.
0:35:14
And we're also leveraging some of our national, I have the timing honor of being the chair of the American Council of Education, which is the largest higher ed membership organization.
0:35:28
And we have never been a plaintiff in a lawsuit for one hundred years.
0:35:33
We've been a plaintiff in three related to this this to this matter.
0:35:37
So all hands on deck.
Alicia Alvero
0:32:05
We received a total of 78 stop work orders and seven were rescinded.
0:32:12
So right now it's
0:32:19
So $17,000,000 that we anticipated receiving for research has been is at risk because
0:32:33
A variety of research.
0:32:36
From environmental to research that looks at the impact of disease on underrepresented populations.
0:32:47
It varies all over, and no real rhyme or reason to which ones were canceled.