A US National Institutes of Health notice announcing a drastic cut in federal science funding appears to draw heavily on a 2022 report by the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025. The report argues that the so-called indirect research costs targeted by the cuts contribute to the “massive growth in DEI staff at US universities.”
The NIH policy change, announced on February 7, dramatically reduces the amount of funding that accompanies NIH grants to cover indirect costs—money that universities put toward building maintenance, administration, support staff wages, regulatory compliance, and safety requirements associated with funded research.
The cuts, which standardize indirect costs at 15 percent of the grant