PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Brown University has joined a federal lawsuit challenging a June 12 directive from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to limit indirect cost reimbursements to a 15% rate for its research grants to higher education institutions.

Brown is a named plaintiff in the suit filed on June 16 in Massachusetts federal district court by the Association of American Universities, the American Council on Education, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities and 12 public and private universities, including Brown. The action is the latest in a series of legal efforts by the University to block federal actions to dramatically reduce funding to critical research.

In a declaration filed as part of the lawsuit, Brown’s Vice President for Research Greg Hirth explained that Brown receives Department of Defense funding that supports cutting-edge, multi-year research projects across the University. Those projects include critical research that is vital to the nation’s security and contributes to innovative solutions with strategic national importance.

“America both depends on and benefits from this research…” Hirth wrote. “Stopping or slowing DOD-funded research not only impedes work in specific fields, but also necessarily causes America to lose its global competitive edge in areas such as AI, microelectronics, advanced functional materials, and quantum science — today and in the future.”

Hirth, a professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences who has been on the Brown faculty since 2007, wrote that in Fiscal Year 2024, Brown received $17.9 million in grants to support projects from many different offices within DOD. In addition, the University has 61 pending proposals for DOD grants, which total more than $27 million.

The reduced funding would have destructive impacts on a wide range of innovative research projects at Brown. This includes research to identify computer security weaknesses that pose threats to U.S. government, industry and private individuals; the development of new approaches to treating military wounds with nanoparticles that eradicate infections for wounded personnel; a solid-state battery study focused on advancements in undersea energy storage technology; research that aims to inform next-generation cyber networks, with the potential to improve security efforts that involve advanced computational analysis; and work to design cutting-edge deep learning systems based on insights on how the brain uses feedback mechanisms to process visual information.

Hirth noted that if — contrary to what Brown has negotiated with the federal government — the indirect cost rate were reduced to 15% for DOD awards, that would significantly reduce Brown’s anticipated annual indirect cost recovery and require Brown to move urgently to adjust operations to absorb the loss of millions of dollars of expected revenue. 

“That would include eliminating positions that support the research enterprise and facilities, such as administrators, research coordinators, lab managers, and security officers,” Hirth wrote. “This would significantly hamper Brown’s ability to continue with critical research projects, and in turn jeopardize its ability to contribute to the nation’s security.”

A reduction in the indirect cost rate would also threaten Brown’s ability to train and retain the next generation of engineers, mathematicians, physicists and chemists. If the University’s DOD awards are terminated, graduate students will have to stop their work, which would hinder their degree completion. This would negatively affect Brown’s workforce and ability to be competitive in fields critical for national security.

“Without the opportunity to conduct DOD-funded research that will be negatively affected by the announced cut to indirect cost reimbursement, skilled faculty will opt to leave Brown, and likely the United States, in pursuit of viable work,” Hirth wrote. “This brain-drain will inevitably lead to lost opportunities to develop U.S. competitiveness, advance American security and military science, create U.S. startup companies, and develop a workforce critical for the science and technical priorities of the current administration.”

Hirth said that like all research-intensive universities, Brown could not simply make up for the resulting funding gap if the DOD indirect cost rate is reduced because the University’s full cost of research is already significantly more than what is covered by sponsored direct costs and indirect cost recovery. In Fiscal Year 2024, for example, Brown’s full cost of research was approximately $395 million, about $100 million more than the combined sponsored direct costs ($224 million) and indirect costs ($70 million) received from the federal government. 

There is currently no other identified source of funds that Brown can use to continue supporting the current costs of conducting research, Hirth noted, and the University would have to significantly scale back the amount of research it conducts. 

Joint lawsuit is the latest in a series of Brown legal actions

Brown continues its persistence in partnering with its educational associations and other private and public institutions of higher education in advocating in court against federal actions that place research funding in jeopardy.

On Feb. 7, Hirth submitted a declaration in support of a federal court filing by about two dozen state attorneys general seeking a preliminary injunction to ensure the continued flow of research funding from federal agencies. The U.S. district court judge in the case first granted a temporary restraining order and then, on March 6, a preliminary injunction blocking the funding freeze. The ruling is being appealed by the federal administration.

On Feb. 10, Brown joined as a named plaintiff in a federal lawsuit to halt the implementation of a 15% cap on the amount that institutions of higher education can recover in indirect cost reimbursements from National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grants. The U.S. district court judge in the case first issued a preliminary injunction and then, on April 4, issued a permanent injunction barring the NIH from implementing the rate cap. The ruling is being appealed by the federal administration.

On April 14, Brown joined as a named plaintiff in a federal lawsuit to halt the implementation of a 15% cap on the amount that institutions of higher education can recover in indirect cost reimbursements from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) research grants. On April 16, the U.S district court judge in the case issued a temporary restraining order temporarily prohibiting the DOE from putting the rate cap into effect.

On May 5, Brown joined as a named plaintiff in a federal lawsuit to halt the implementation of a 15% cap on the amount that institutions of higher education can recover in indirect cost reimbursements from National Science Foundation research grants. And on June 9, Brown and 23 fellow research institutions filed a joint amicus brief in support of Harvard University’s lawsuit challenging a funding freeze imposed by the federal government.

In the June 16 lawsuit challenging the DOD indirect cost rate cap, Brown and the other plaintiffs described the DOD action as identical in key respects to policies of the NIH and DOE that federal courts have already blocked.

“While DOD’s action is unlawful for most of the same reasons as the similar actions by other agencies, DOD has further acted arbitrarily in not even attempting to address many of the flaws the district courts found with NIH’s and DOE’s unlawful policies,” the complaint states. “As with those policies, if DOD’s policy is allowed to stand, it will stop critical research in its tracks, lead to layoffs and cutbacks at universities across the country, badly undermine scientific research at United States universities, and erode our nation’s enviable status as a global leader in scientific research and innovation.”

In addition to Brown and the educational associations, the other public and private higher education institutions in the joint lawsuit against DOD are Arizona State University; California Institute of Technology; University of California; Colorado State University; Cornell University; University of Illinois; Johns Hopkins University; University of Maryland; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; University of Pittsburgh; and University of Washington.