On July 10, Provost Francis J. Doyle III and Vice President for Research Greg Hirth submitted a comment advocating against the federal Office of Management and Budget’s suggested changes to research grant distribution regulations. The rule would prioritize grants for research that advances the president’s policy priorities, among other guidelines.
The proposed rule, originally published on May 29, suggests changes to Part 200 of Title 2 of the US Code of Federal Regulations, which manages federal funding and grants for research.
Under the proposed change, no federal money could go toward funding or promoting “racial preferences or other forms of racial discrimination by the recipient,” the “denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic,” illegal immigration, or anything else deemed to “compromise public safety or promote anti-American values.”
Doyle and Hirth wrote that Brown shares OMB’s stated goals to “improve transparency, accountability and oversight for use of federal taxpayer dollars and to reduce the burden on recipients of federal financial assistance,” but that the proposed rule changes do not “reasonably respond” to those goals.
They went on to emphasize the historical connection between the federal government and elite research universities, and stressed the importance of continuing to strengthen it.
Since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2025, Brown has received $204.86 million in grants from the Department of Health and Human Services, and more than $125 million in grants from other government agencies, according to USAspending.gov.
“The proposed rule, as drafted, would make this partnership less stable,” wrote Doyle and Hirth. “It would introduce standards that shift after awards are made, reduce the role of expert reviews, impose blanket administrative requirements without regard to recipient risk, restrict ordinary dissemination of research findings and allow performing awards to be suspended or terminated without the procedural protections needed to correct errors before research is interrupted.”
Doyle and Hirth raised six main concerns with the rule, including the administrative burden it would place on federal award recipients, its potential chilling effect on federally supported research across disciplines and its denial of basic procedural fairness.
“Brown’s faculty, students and staff — and the patients, communities and public they serve through their research — depend on a federal research funding system that values scientific merit, honors commitments and operates with fairness and transparency,” Doyle and Hirth wrote. “Brown urges OMB to revise the proposed rule consistent with these principles.”
Jeremiah Farr is a senior staff writer covering university hall and higher education.
