Since 2016, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has established itself as a prestigious research institution. Federal research funding cuts could change that in the years to come.
In February, UW-Milwaukee announced it has maintained its R1 research status. The R1 designation is the highest rating for research from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, which releases research ratings every three years. UW-Milwaukee was previously named an R1 institution in 2016, 2019 and 2022.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, UW-Milwaukee has seen grants terminated by multiple federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Institute of Museum and Library Services and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“We’re seeing kind of continuously over the last few weeks, terminations, some related to topics that relate to executive orders, others are unclear why they were terminated, or that they’ve just deleted entire agencies and are just terminating all the grants for that, so it’s been a mix of reasons,” said Kristian O’Connor, interim vice provost for research and graduate school dean at UW-Milwaukee.
In fiscal year 2024, UW-Milwaukee’s total research expenditures reached $66 million. Federal funding comprises a substantial portion of that sum, with just under $28 million coming in the form of federal grants. If federal funding for research continues to decline, UW-Milwaukee could have difficulty maintaining its research enterprise.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education ranks institutions into three categories, which are based on how many doctoral degrees the institutions award and their amount of research expenditures. Institutions with “very high research spending and doctorate production” are considered R1 research institutions.
To receive the R1 designation, institutions must have research expenditures of at least $50 million annually. Federal research grants are included in total research expenditures.
“There would have to be very dramatic change in our research expenditures in fiscal year ‘26 to impact our January ‘28 status on that list,” O’Connor said. “I’m already able to say that we’re in a reasonable position for the next one in three years. After that, though, January 2031 is one that I actually think about. That’s the one I worry more about. If our overall research funding degrades, and they raise that threshold due to inflation, there might be a point where those cross in the next two, three years.”
Federal departments, including the NIH, have attempted to cap the indirect cost reimbursement rate for research grants at 15%. UW-Milwaukee’s indirect cost reimbursement rate is 54%.
“If that goes to 15%, our ability to support a research enterprise at all, really, for every university, is put into question,” O’Connor said. “Then this R1 designation – who knows what that means in a world where everything goes 15%, because the research world in this country will look very, very different.”
When it comes to its research efforts, UW-Milwaukee’s greatest challenge is grappling with more constrained resources, O’Connor said, and “what’s happening at the federal level certainly doesn’t help right now.”
“Certainly, we’re spending a lot of time thinking about what the impacts could be if different scenarios come into play,” O’Connor said.
