The Sequester Is Delaying Research at US Universities

If you can think back a couple of scandals, grandstands and a shutdown ago, you’ll remember the sequestration—across the board cuts that were designed to be so painful that Congress would just have to get it together and come up with a budget.

Well, they didn’t, so the sequester went into effect, broadsiding the Defense Department, NASA, and American research grants and the universities that rely on them.

Three organizations representing the nation's leading public and private research universities released the results of a new survey looking at the sequestration's impact on research across the country today, and confirmed there has been a chilling effect.

The Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and The Science Coalition (TSC) heard back from 74 research universities out of the 171 among their members, and found that 81 percent of the respondents “cited impacts directly affecting their research activity.”

Of those, 24 percent reported being forced into laying off personnel, and 23 percent reported admitting fewer graduate students. Nineteen percent cancelled field or experimental work and 38 percent delayed it. Seventy percent reported delaying research and fewer research grants.

Before the sequester ax dropped in March, Science Works for US collected video editorials from professors and administrators, who argued that the then-proposed cuts would threaten American research and innovation. An op-ed in the Financial Times from before the sequester stated that, “fully 75 percent of postwar growth is tied to technological innovation, according to the commerce department.”

It’s important to remember that, for institutions of learning, the effects of seven months of sequestration can be felt for decades to come. The projected 600,000 jobs the sequester will cut in research and development are the next generation of scientists and research.

"There is a clear and present danger that sequestration will damage America's pre-eminence in scientific research and higher education over the long-term," Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun said on behalf of TSC.  “Given the impact we already have seen, we urge the members of the House and Senate who are negotiating funding for FY2014 and beyond to end sequestration, enable investments in scientific research and higher education, and restore the dividends these investments produce for our economy and society."