Government shutdown creates challenges for university researchers and federal grant recipients
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The ongoing government shutdown is creating uncertainty and disruption for universities, researchers, and others who rely on federal grants and funding.
"The shutdown is likely to complicate the lives of our colleagues on these campuses in several ways," said grant consultant Frank Boyd.
Federal personnel, including grant managers and program managers, are generally furloughed and unavailable for technical assistance, contract administration, or to answer questions during the shutdown.
"Anyone who tries to email a program officer or someone in government, the executive branch, they're receiving an automatic reply that they're out of box. And so that creates an information void that absolutely could potentially impact the research activities of individual scholars and another aspect, student workers who may be in those labs assisting scholars with their work," Boyd said.
The communication blackout means researchers may struggle to access needed resources or resolve issues with their federally funded projects, experts said.
"So one can envision an individual researcher or an institution that needs to draw down additional funds and they don't have anyone on the other side of the line to help facilitate that process," Boyd said.
According to Texas A&M, the good news for students is their financial aid has safeguards in place to ensure there is no stoppage during the shutdown.
Boyd said the longer the shutdown continues, the more challenges the researchers will face.
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