Update – 12:45pm: OMB 25-13 was rescinded by the Office of Management and Budget after this message was distributed to campus. Our guidance for campus remains the same; researchers should continue work on their federal projects unless they have already been instructed not to by a federal agency. We will continue to monitor agency communications that impact federally-funded research, and will communicate with campus and investigators who are directly impacted by federal orders.

Federal transition updates 

1/29, 9:00am

The university is continuing to collaborate with our partners to carefully track and ascertain the implications of a number of memos, agency directives, and executive orders that may have impacts for the research enterprise. As you may already be aware, a federal judge temporarily blocked the federal pauses outlined in OMB 25-13 yesterday afternoon. The judge’s order expires at 5:00pm on Feb. 3.

Earlier yesterday, the OMB also issued a Q&A which clarifies the scope of the OMB 25-13 memo. Any program not implicated by the President’s Executive Orders will not be subject to the pause. Financial aid is also not impacted. 

We understand that the uncertainties regarding recent directives have created a considerable amount of concern within our research community about current and future funding. My office is working closely with the Division of Sponsored Programs to communicate with investigators who are directly impacted by recent agency communications. We are in the process of reviewing the details of specific projects to determine which employees may be impacted and to what extent.

At this time, researchers may continue to conduct the research and scholarship funded by our federal agencies unless we are instructed to do otherwise.

We are committed to forging a path forward that includes working with stakeholders and listening to the research community. If you receive direct communication from a federal agency, please forward it to dsp@uiowa.edu, so that we can continue to track the impacts to our research enterprise.

We have launched a new website, Federal Updates 2025, where we will post regular updates and link to resources for the community. We will be in touch as soon as we have more clarity from the federal agencies about the impacts of recent directives.

Lois J. Geist 
Interim Vice President for Research
 

The university is continuing to monitor communications from federal agencies that may impact UI research, including the freeze at the National Institutes of Health. At this time, the freeze is set to lift after Feb. 1. We ask that researchers and administrators share all agency communications related to their sponsored projects with the Division of Sponsored Programs (DSP) at dsp@uiowa.edu. We will communicate important updates to campus as they become available.

The university is aware that several federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, have paused some activities that may impact federally-funded research at the University of Iowa. 

Our UI teams (Office of the Vice President for Research, Office of Federal Relations, Collegiate Associate Deans for Research) are actively monitoring federal agency communications and are working with our professional associations to understand and track the implications of these directives. We will provide updates to campus via our website as soon as they become available.

In the meantime, we ask that researchers and administrators share all agency communications related to their sponsored projects with the Division of Sponsored Programs (DSP) at dsp@uiowa.edu.  

Lois J. Geist
Interim Vice President for Research