Dear colleagues,
This week, we joined the UCLA Connects Research Town Hall to participate in discussions regarding the impact of the suspension of some federal research funding to UCLA. We also met with division chiefs on Wednesday morning to discuss the strategies that the UCLA Department of Medicine (DoM) is considering as we plan our path forward. Chairs and senior school and health system leadership have also been meeting daily to receive updates, given the broad impact of these events beyond the DoM. There is significant effort at multiple levels to explore all possible approaches to address the current situation. As the University is engaging with federal sponsors to find a resolution for the suspension, the timeline for these discussions remains uncertain. While these discussions continue, we are seeing new federal grants being processed at UCLA, so it is unclear whether the suspension applies to new or future awards. Thus, we encourage all investigators to continue working on grants that are current and that have recently been awarded. We also encourage all our investigators to continue submitting grant applications to federal sponsors as we continue to work towards a resolution.
For those whose grants have been impacted, it is important that you work closely with your fund managers to make sure all costs incurred prior to July 31 are accounted for in order for the Federal Financial Reports to be submitted by the 30 day deadline stipulated in the stop work order. For this purpose, we have established cost centers in each division to which these expenses should be temporarily moved to, to ensure that we can remain in compliance with the stop work order.
As we move forward, our department is taking a strategic approach, that aligns with school of medicine-wide policies, and ensures that we can continue support for our faculty, trainees, staff and research activities to the best of our ability. We are prioritizing tapping into all available sources of funding, such as discretionary funds and gifts, before utilizing compensation plan funds to address certain funding gaps. The school is currently reviewing all unrestricted and donor funds and have shared this information. The department has also conducted a review of these sources within the DoM. We will use this information in planning our approach. Just as we did during the COVID-19 pandemic, our focus will be on sustaining essential research activities and pausing or scaling back nonessential efforts, so that we can rapidly pivot when funding is restored.
Our department’s current planning and actions include:
Faculty and trainee salaries:
We are modeling various scenarios for faculty efforts on suspended grants, with the goal of reducing the impact on compensation. Each case will be reviewed individually. We will initially prioritize reassigning salaries to other sources where possible such as grants, P913 accounts, and/ or discretionary sources, to optimize other departmental resources to support our impacted research community. We also want to underscore our commitment to our early career faculty and our trainees. To this end, the department will absorb the salary costs of our K awardees so there is no change in salary. We are also collecting data on trainees, namely graduate students and post-docs who were supported on suspended training grants that may or may not live in the DoM, to understand what will be required to support their stipends.
Staff Costs:
We are carefully reviewing academic and staff payroll expenses for impacted awards to determine short and long-term support options. We recognize that many of your lab staff have years of experience that are critical to the long-term success of your research programs, and we understand the potentially devastating impact of losing them from our community. Based on the information that is currently available to us, we are evaluating multiple scenarios given that stop-gap funding might be insufficient to sustain full operations. These scenarios include temporary time reductions or reassignments, and if absolutely necessary, staffing changes - which could include temporary furlough or in some cases, a permanent reduction in workforce. We ask that PI’s please explore reallocating staff to other awards or unrestricted funds, and that divisions assess whether gifts or discretionary funds can be used to address funding gaps. The department will develop a funding mechanism to support staff if PI’s and divisions do not have other funding options, however the level of support will depend on faculty salary subsidies and trainee support.
Nonpayroll Expenses:
We ask that PI’s use gifts, P913 accounts, or other unrestricted funds to cover nonpayroll costs. If those funds are not sufficient, the divisions will review their available resources. If alternative sources of funding are not available through the PI or division, the department will evaluate requests and prioritize activities that are essential to research operations.
We are meeting with division administrators and grant managers to implement these plans and will create a cost center for each division to transfer expenses as needed. Department and research leadership will meet individually with each PI who is affected by the suspension to discuss next steps.
We know there are still many questions and we will continue to communicate openly and often. Our department will host a research town hall in the coming weeks to share the latest information and answer your questions.
We understand this is a challenging moment, but we are confident that we will overcome these obstacles when we work together. Thank you for your dedication, creativity, and support of each other through each step of this process.
Sincerely,
E. Dale Abel, MD, PhD
William S. Adams Distinguished Professor of Medicine
Chair and Executive Medical Director
Department of Medicine
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and UCLA Health
Judith S. Currier, MD
Professor of Medicine
Executive Vice Chair for Research, Department of Medicine
Sue and Michael Steinberg Chair in Global AIDS Research
Gregory A. Brent, MD
Senior Executive Academic Vice Chair
Department of Medicine
Professor of Medicine and Physiology
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
