The university is continuing to collaborate with our partners to carefully track and ascertain the implications of a number of memos, agency directives, and executive orders that may have impacts for the research enterprise. As you may already be aware, a federal judge temporarily blocked the federal pauses outlined in OMB 25-13 yesterday afternoon. The judge’s order expires at 5:00pm on Feb. 3.
Earlier yesterday, the OMB also issued a Q&A which clarifies the scope of the OMB 25-13 memo. Any program not implicated by the President’s Executive Orders will not be subject to the pause. Financial aid is also not impacted.
We understand that the uncertainties regarding recent directives have created a considerable amount of concern within our research community about current and future funding. My office is working closely with the Division of Sponsored Programs to communicate with investigators who are directly impacted by recent agency communications. We are in the process of reviewing the details of specific projects to determine which employees may be impacted and to what extent.
At this time, researchers may continue to conduct the research and scholarship funded by our federal agencies unless we are instructed to do otherwise.
We are committed to forging a path forward that includes working with stakeholders and listening to the research community. If you receive direct communication from a federal agency, please forward it to dsp@uiowa.edu, so that we can continue to track the impacts to our research enterprise.
We have launched a new website, Federal Updates 2025, where we will post regular updates and link to resources for the community. We will be in touch as soon as we have more clarity from the federal agencies about the impacts of recent directives.
Lois J. Geist
Interim Vice President for Research
