University of Iowa, Iowa State report drops in research funding

IOWA CITY — In an evolving federal funding landscape under a new administration with shifting priorities, Iowa’s top research universities on Thursday announced drops in research funding for the budget year that ended June 30.

The University of Iowa’s $705.6 million in total external funding for fiscal 2025 included $533.7 million in support of research, scholarship, and creative activities — representing a 22 percent drop from UI’s $683.8 million in research funding last year and marking its lowest research funding total since 2019’s $467 million.

Iowa State University’s $549.3 million in external funding for fiscal 2025 included $329.9 million for research — down 5 percent from last year’s $346.2 million record, although still the second highest tally in ISU history.

“The evolving landscape and changing priorities within the U.S. Department of Agriculture resulted in Iowa State receiving just $24.5 million in agency research funding in FY25,” campus officials said in a news release Thursday, noting that from January to May, Iowa State received no new competitive research grants from the agency. “This is the lowest amount the university has received over the past five fiscal years, and $24.4 million or 49.8 percent below FY24’s landmark total.”

The new numbers represent a budget year split by two presidential administrations — with President Donald Trump taking over in late January and almost immediately imposing new funding mandates and restrictions through agencies like the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Departments of Energy, Education, and Defense, among others.

What followed was a roller coaster of court battles, stays, temporary restraining orders, and injunctions that compelled both UI and ISU to create “federal updates” webpages committed to offering guidance to the thousands of researchers on their campuses.

“Researchers should continue work on their existing federally-funded projects unless they are told to stop,” according to the UI page, last updated July 1. “The federal workforce is sustaining reductions in staffing. As a result, investigators will likely face communication delays about their currently-funded projects, submitted proposals, and future funding opportunities.”

‘Quite atypical’

Because FY25 began July 1, 2024 under a different presidential administration — and due to the legal battles restricting federal funding cuts — the full impact of funding changes and challenges could come years down the road.

“The 2025 fiscal year, that closed June 30, was quite atypical for Iowa State University researchers,” campus officials said Thursday in unveiling the annual funding totals. “Collectively, they experienced the exhilarating highs of new major awards to support their research and discovery as well as the feelings of anxiety brought about by a changing federal funding landscape with rapidly evolving priorities.”

Regarding Iowa State’s total FY25 external funding — encompassing not just federal research support but contracts, grants, agreements and donations from individuals, corporations, nonprofits and other entities backing facility improvements, academics, and scholarships — Iowa State’s $549.3 million marked a slight 1-percent increase over last year, although it’s still below the $601.7 million record from fiscal 2022.

The UI’s external funding total was down 13 percent from last year’s $811 million and 19 percent from its record $867 million in fiscal 2022 — totals that since 2020 have been bolstered by COVID relief aid and federal stimulus support, which have waned.

This year, specifically, federal stimulus and COVID aid shrank to just $331,429 from a high of $112 million in FY21 — when external funding swelled to $818 million. In addition to the 2021 boost, UI reported federal stimulus and COVID aid of $53 million in FY20, $43 million in FY22, $35.2 million in FY23, and $2.1 million in FY24.

Federal research funding

Looking just at the federal piece of UI and ISU research funding — given the ups and downs from federal agencies in recent months — UI support dropped under $300 million for the first time in years, dipping to $299.5 million from $363.4 million in FY23.

Despite its drop in USDA support, Iowa State saw an uptick in federal funding to $240.1 million — exceeding the previous record of $236.3 million set last year and marking the fourth straight federal funding record.

ISU federal funding highlights include:

The University of Iowa reported its investigators secured funding for more than 2,300 projects in FY25, including awards aimed at tackling Iowa’s high cancer rate.

UI Health Care Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology James Byrne, for example, landed a five-year $1.5 million award to develop “unique, biocompatible materials to reduce the side effects of radiation therapy.”

  Buy Photo

UI College of Pharmacy Dean and professor Jill Kolesar — in collaboration with her former research home on the University of Kentucky — received a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services award for $10 million over two years to develop a new approach to combating ovarian cancer.

“Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, and there are few effective treatments,” Kolesar said in October, when the university announced the award. “We have developed a new therapy that is effective and has few or no adverse effects. This grant supports the first clinical trial of this therapy and the next step in making it available to women who need it desperately.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com