BALTIMORE — Johns Hopkins University is making funding available for research projects immediately impacted by federal cuts.
Earlier this year, the institution announced it would lose $800 million in federal funding as part of DOGE's cuts to USAID.
Another $200 million in NIH grants are in limbo as the university fights to keep it in the courts.
VIDEO: Johns Hopkins bridging gap with new grants to address federal funding cuts
It's unclear how much research funded by federal sources has been impacted.
"This situation for higher education is pretty much unprecedented," economist with the Urban Institute Sandy Baum said.
Johns Hopkins is now using a small amount of money from its endowment fund to fund its new JHU Pivot and Bridge grants, which offer between $100-150,000 for up to 12 months.
A perfectly reasonable move, Baum says, in light of the circumstances.
"The purpose of the endowment is to allow you to maintain your university and its mission and its level of activity indefinitely," she said. "And if they allow all of these projects to go down the tubes, then that won't be the case. So this is the kind of emergency where it does make sense to take some more money out of your endowment to prevent a crisis."
Though the fund is more than $13 billion total, most is limited in how it can be used.
“The endowment funds are often restricted. Donors give them money and they say you can only use it for this purpose," Baum said. "It's not like a bank account.”
It's unclear how much will be used for the grants, but the university has been open the it will not make up for the entire deficit or even close to it.
“We are deeply committed to sustaining the people and projects that power discovery at Johns Hopkins. While we cannot make up the full measure of recent or potential federal research cuts, we are striving to provide several new supports to faculty, students, and staff directly affected in an effort to temper some of the most immediate impacts on our research enterprise,” President Ron Daniels and Provost Ray Jayawardhana said in a message to faculty.
"They can't just replace federal funding and do all this research forever, but they can do something to mitigate the current problem," Baum said.
Concerns linger over what other federal funding may be at risk.
