Schoolwide Planning and Research Update

Dear HSDM Faculty, Staff, and Fellows,

This week, more news was shared about the status of Harvard’s research funding. We write to provide timely and transparent updates on the impact to our community. As the federal administration moved to terminate all federally-funded grants issued to Harvard, President Garber and Provost Manning reaffirmed their commitment to Harvard’s research enterprise in a University-wide message that dedicated $250 million of central funding to bolster School-based strategies to continue research. While this was welcome news, we understand this amount will only support a fraction of what is needed to sustain all research at Harvard. At the School-level, we will need to make informed and prudent financial decisions to adjust to this rapidly changing funding environment. 

We know that many in our research community are feeling vulnerable, and we want to reassure our highly valued researchers that we will work together to do everything we can to find creative solutions to maintain research continuity. PI’s and department chairs will hear directly from Meghan O’Donnell and Catherine Utt who will work closely on solutions with you. As mentioned in the town hall, work led by department chairs is planned to determine the strategic focus of our future research enterprise to guide our path forward.

We want to emphasize that this will not just impact the research community, this is an HSDM-wide challenge impacting all units across the school. It requires a school-wide, one-HSDM mindset to shore up our finances from an existing deficit that has now been exacerbated by the termination of federal funding. We assure you that we will take a holistic and collaborative approach in our planning, assessment, and decision-making to ensure the school’s financial stability and uphold our educational, research, and service missions.

Everyone will be asked to consider ways to contract spending and consider creative strategies for cost-savings or revenue generation. As such, we will continue to pause all new hiring. The recent changes in the federal funding landscape will also necessitate new guidance from the Position Management Team (PMT) on hiring and appointment exceptions, and the team will share updated information soon. In addition, programmatic needs assessments are underway to enable data-informed workforce planning decisions. Until these assessments are completed, exceptions will not be considered.

We understand that the challenges we face are unsettling, and we will offer more opportunities to come together and keep lines of communication open. During this challenging time, please be considerate and supportive to your colleagues. Thank you to all those who joined us recently for the town hall panel, open office hours, and the community breakfast this week. It was good to be together, and we are extremely grateful to be part of a community that cares deeply about our collective work and one another. 

Sincerely,

William Giannobile
Dean and A. Lee Loomis Professor of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity

Tom Miller
Dean of Administration and Chief Operating Officer