As the Trump administration slashes the U.S. Agency for International Development with the assistance of tech billionaire Elon Musk, new questions and concerns are being raised about the impact the gutting of the agency will have on USAID’s research grants, many of which are — or were — funding studies being conducted at U.S. universities.
Trump has recently criticized the agency, which was established in 1961, as being “run by a bunch of radical lunatics.” Musk, who’s heading up what’s called the Department of Government Efficiency, has called it a “criminal organization.”
Initial press accounts vary in terms of how many USAID staff the administration is planning to lay off. The New York Times reported on Thursday that the aim is to reduce USAID’s global workforce of 10,000 to only about 290 positions and cancel about 800 awards and contracts administered through the agency. On Friday, Reuters reported the plan was to keep “611 essential workers on board.”
While some opponents of USAID have made false or misleading claims about its expenditures and recipients, advocates for the agency point to its long history of providing humanitarian aid to hundreds of countries, assistance that has focused on disease prevention and public health, the promotion of democracy, disaster relief, and the alleviation of poverty.
Millions of dollars in USAID funding have gone toward grants and contracts supporting research at U.S. universities. The status of that work is now uncertain, but it appears that almost all of the agency’s funding has been frozen at least for now.
Currently, it’s not possible to learn about these research projects or any other expenditures from the USAID website. It has been disabled, with its landing page displaying a message that says, in part: “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally,” by the end of this week “with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”
However, recent press accounts and announcements by universities help reveal the scope of the research that’s in jeopardy. Here are just three examples of the kinds of research projects USAID has recently funded at American universities.
Feed The Future
A major funding initiative, involving dozens of colleges and universities, is USAID’s Feed The Future project (its website has also been taken down). According to a recent fact sheet from the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, as of 2021, 21 Feed the Future Innovation Labs had been established at 13 universities that were investigating a variety of agricultural and food issues.
Examples of these projects include developing climate-resilient, more nutritious crop varieties in under-developed countries, introducing ag extension services in these countries, and experimenting with various pest-resistant crop varieties.
In 2024, USAID selected Kansas State University to manage the Climate Resilient Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab, as part of its Feed the Future program. It was awarded up to $50 million for five years. The purpose of the lab is to develop agricultural technologies that can increase yields on less land and with fewer negative environmental consequences.
Examples of other Feed the Future labs can be found at the University of Florida for improving livestock practices, Mississippi State University for developing more nutrient-rich fish, the University of Nebraska for promoting water and food security, the University of Illinois for enhancing soybean production, and Purdue University for improving food safety.
Research On International Democracy
Vanderbilt University’s Center for Global Democracy was recently awarded $12.5 million from USAID to conduct research on democratic governance in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The five-year grant was intended to help support the work of the AmericasBarometer survey, a biennial study of social and political attitudes in more than two dozen countries in the Western Hemisphere. The grant would also fund other surveys of public attitudes about democracy and governance across those regions.
“This grant is core to our work. We would not be able to support the AmericasBarometer without it, and that project is the cornerstone of the Center for Global Democracy,” said Noam Lupu, director of the center, at the time of the award. “This award allows us to continue to innovate and to remain at the frontier of both international survey methods and the study of democracy. It recognizes the important work we’ve been doing over the last 20 years and our reputation as a preeminent center for excellence in these fields, and at the same time, provides critical funding to allow us to do more and make new discoveries.”
Improving Education Worldwide
USAID has issued contracts to improve teacher preparation and education systems in various countries with the assistance of U.S. universities. An example is an award to Arizona State University to help the country of Georgia strengthen the quality of its K–12 education system. Florida State University researchers have helped to improve teacher education in Egypt as part of USAID-sponsored project.
The Syracuse University University School of Education participates in a USAID- supported consortium focused on developing inclusive and equitable early grade education in Uzbekistan. Indiana University heads up The Partnership for Higher Education Reform, a five-year $14.2 million USAID effort to strengthen teaching, research, innovation, and governance within the three largest national universities in Vietnam.
USAID’s future existence is in serious doubt, with one possibility being that its remnants are moved to the State Department. Whether the growing public outcry over its decimation will be enough to save it remains uncertain. How many members of Congress will push back on its elimination, particularly those representing red states where many of the affected universities are located? Will a federal lawsuit recently filed by labor groups challenging the legality of the administration’s actions be successful in blocking the administration’s plans? How much might the administration backpedal as more is learned about the agency’s contributions?
One thing is certain. Many university leaders will be watching what happens to USAID closely. First of all, the research it has helped support is an important component in the research enterprise of several leading institutions. But beyond that, its fate may also signal the Trump team’s stance on peer-reviewed research funding by other federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.