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Grantmakers are “exploring options” but stress they cannot replace withdrawn support from US government
Several international health research funders say they are exploring ways to support projects affected by recent US funding cuts, according to statements provided to Research Professional News this week.
The cuts, implemented since Donald Trump returned to the presidency in January, have left numerous research projects worldwide without expected funding after the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) terminated their grants.
The Trump administration has framed these changes as efforts to eliminate waste and corruption in development support while aligning projects with its ‘America First’ policy. Critics have denounced the abrupt nature of the cuts as wasteful, illegal and cruel.
One of the affected programmes is the South Africa-led Brilliant consortium, which confirmed on 3 March that its US$45.6 million grant from USAid to develop HIV vaccines for Africa has been cancelled.
‘Exploring options’
John-Arne Røttingen, chief executive of London-based medical research charity Wellcome, told RPN that Wellcome’s major international programmes in Africa and Asia are “among those experiencing direct and indirect impacts”.
He said the organisation is “exploring what options might exist” to support affected research, confirming that “decisions to make substantial cuts to funding available to global health and health research pose significant challenges”.
However, he cautioned that Wellcome’s contribution is “a drop in the ocean compared with what governments across the world need to provide”.
Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council acknowledged “concerns within the health and medical research sector about the potential impact that decisions made abroad may have on research” but did not announce specific measures in response to the US cuts.
The NHMRC said it “will continue to partner with international funders through multilateral and bilateral agreements” and support Australian researchers participating in international collaborations, including collaborations with colleagues in the US.
Alternative funds
The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) Association, which manages the €1.86 billion (US$2bn) Global Health EDCTP3 programme funding infectious disease research in Africa, said in a joint statement with its funding programme that they had been “directly informed” by projects affected by cuts in US funding.
The association and the programme are engaging with the affected projects to help them achieve “a successful conclusion within the timeframe and budget” of existing grants, said Pauline Beattie, operations manager and scientific adviser of the EDCTP Association.
“We have advised individuals to explore the current Global Health EDCTP3 funding opportunities available to Europe-Africa research consortia to determine if they can apply for support through our existing funding mechanisms,” she said.
The EDCTP can only initiate emergency funding initiatives under specific circumstances, such as public health emergencies. However, said Beattie, the changes in the funding landscape will be taken into account when the organisation next updates its research and innovation agenda.
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