Government Shutdown Cuts Off Data Access, Stalls Grant Applications for Harvard Researchers

As the federal government shutdown enters its fourth week, researchers across Harvard have been left uncertain about whether they will regain access to federal funds and government data for future studies.

The shutdown began on Oct. 1, just less than two weeks after the Trump administration began to restore frozen funding to Harvard. A majority of Harvard’s federal funding was restored, in September and October with grants flowing to Harvard researchers for the first time since April, but some researchers have been left in the lurch as they seek new grants. All except crucial operations of many federal agencies — including the National Institutes of Health — are currently paused as a result of the shutdown.

Harvard Medical School professor David P. Corey wrote in a statement that he recently submitted a grant proposal for developing therapies for youth deafness, but that the funding will remain “in limbo” until the government reopens.

“About 10 children a day are born in the United States with this form of deafness,” Corey wrote in an email. “So every day delay means fewer who can be treated.”

Harvard School of Public Health professor Rita Hamad ’03, who studies the impact of Covid-19 on racial and economic disparities, wrote in a statement that she expects “downstream delays” in financing upcoming projects that use National Institutes of Health funds.

“My team does have an NIH grant that was supposed to be reviewed at the end of this month, and that is going to be cancelled if the shutdown isn’t resolved soon,” she wrote in an email.

Researchers said they have been unable to reach any NIH employees or program officers — who release grant notices and assist researchers in submitting annual progress reports — since the shutdown began. HSPH professor Josiemer Mattei said communication with the NIH has “definitely been severed.”

“I pretty much cannot even contact them by email, because their emails shut down,” she said. “I haven’t been able to communicate with my program officers at NIH either.”

As deadlines to renew funding approach, researchers said they’ve been left in the dark without guidance and advice on grant applications from the agency. Grant recipients set specific goals for their progress, which they are required to address in annual progress reports.

“We have our aims for the project, and we have to comply with that every single year,” Mattei said. “They guide us through that, they approve that, and then they approve the money for the next year.”

“I don’t know how this shutdown is going to shift the timeline of our projects down the road,” she added.

A University spokesperson declined to comment on changes to funding during the shutdown.

The shutdown has also restricted access to government data sets. Hamad wrote that she has been unable to access data essential to her research due to the closure of the U.S. Census Federal Statistical Research Data Center in Cambridge.

Some faculty at Harvard’s Center for Astrophysics — a collaboration with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory — who are employed primarily by the Smithsonian have told students that they lost access to their email accounts and office spaces due to the shutdown. The CFA employs more than 900 staff members.

“During a government shutdown, for the most part, federally funded functions at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory are suspended,” a CFA spokesperson wrote in an email. “Certain Smithsonian federal employees can engage in time sensitive research or experiments, such as observation time at a telescope.”

While Mattei has yet to see any direct effects on her research, she said the suspension of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will impact her work, which focuses on creating guidelines for those at high risk of diabetes and experiencing food insecurity.

“The thing is that the guidance that we provide is around their current diets,” Mattei said. “We don’t know how lack of access to foods in the next month or so is going to affect their actual consumption of foods, and we will have to change our dietary advice to face that reality.”

With no end in sight, researchers said they are hoping for relief from the “brutal” effects of the shutdown.

“I’m just hoping that they don’t freeze our funding again. We just got it reinstated, and it would be devastating,” Mattei said.

“I can tell you that this roller coaster has been brutal for everybody involved,” she added.

–Staff writer Abigail S. Gerstein can be reached at abigail.gerstein@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @abbysgerstein.

—Staff writer Ella F. Niederhelman can be reached at ella.niederhelman@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @eniederhelman.