Funding from federal agencies makes up the majority of available dollars for Northwestern’s research community. Of the $1.05 billion received in sponsored research in 2024, almost $700 million was awarded through the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense and Department of Energy. About $516.1 million came from the NIH alone.
For NU’s science and engineering research community, the application process remains a rigorous, year-round undertaking to keep projects afloat.
“There’s no other way to fuel that kind of cutting-edge research at the undergraduate, graduate, postdoc and (Principal Investigator) level, to do all the amazing things on both campuses that Northwestern is accomplishing,” chemistry Prof. Karl Scheidt said.
The nature of federal funding entered an unprecedented era of unpredictability following the federal funding freeze from April 2025 up until November 2025, when NU struck a deal with the Trump administration. The freeze resulted in over 100 stop-work orders and at least $1 billion in unpaid research grants.
Throughout the period, the University pledged to monetarily sustain any impacted research, which cost NU $30 to $40 million each month, interim President Henry Bienen told The Daily in an Oct. 24 interview.
The pursuit of federal dollars remains a constant for NU science and engineering researchers to back innovation. For humanities and social science researchers, federal funding offers additional, but not vital, support.
Impact unlocks both research and infrastructure funding
Impact is the key indicator of a successful application and subsequent funding, Feinberg Prof. Stewart Shankman said. For him, supporting public health is the top priority.
“We always ask ourselves, ‘Can this project have public health significance?’” he said.
That impact requires funds, which are used to sustain the University research ecosystem that makes discovery possible.
For every dollar that meets criteria for Facilities & Administrative rates, Moskowitz said an additional 60 cents is earmarked for “indirect costs.” Shankman added that these funds “keep the University running,” fueling essential infrastructure such as facility maintenance and administrative salaries. The remaining money received by the research lab is then spread across various expenditures.
According to Scheidt, the grant is administered as a refund. The lab sends the University the bill for the work, which it then sends to the federal agency. From there, the agency refunds the University up until the grant limit.
Scheidt said roughly 80% of his lab’s funds goes to personnel. To cover stipends for chemistry graduate students, he said the majority receive funding from federal grants. The lab also uses federal funding for equipment and materials required for conducting research.
“If you don’t have external funding, you really don’t have a research laboratory,” Scheidt said. “That’s the lifeblood of a laboratory.”
Ph.D. students conduct their own research under faculty. The extent to which graduate students are integrated into the grant writing process depends on the lab, from writing their own grants for dissertations to drafting parts of federal grant applications.
In addition to receiving federal funding from the lab, students like second-year Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering Abdul Bamba can earn individual funding through avenues like the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
Bamba said grants, both from federal agencies or from within the University, allow students to diversify their own funding.
“The main thing about it is having stability in your work because, a lot of the times, we are able to get funded through doing TAships and research assistantships, but having government sources as your funding allows you to spend your time doing other things,” he said.
While Bamba said he enjoys the role of a teaching assistant, removing that obligation allows him to invest time into additional research projects.
Federal funding is rare but treasured in the humanities and social sciences
French and comparative literature Prof. Christopher Bush said federal funding is much less critical to scholars in the humanities and social sciences.
Bush said research in these fields requires less financial backing, but potential expenditures could involve traveling to look at an archive or paying for permissions to reproduce images. As such, he said the main value of funding is time away from other obligations, including teaching and service to the University.
“The money goes to the University to buy out your time so that you can take a leave to do research,” Bush said.
Bush was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which allowed him to take time off to work on a book project.
It is rare to receive federal funding in the humanities, given its low acceptance rate, Bush said. Therefore, many researchers do not consistently explore this funding option.
Applications require continuous effort
The federal funding application landscape is competitive. Several agencies have multiple application cycles each year, so for many, the act of applying is a continuous undertaking.
Prior to an application submission, Scheidt said most grants require researchers to first develop preliminary results to demonstrate to peer reviewers that their study can produce meaningful and “promising” insights.
Researchers often generate new proposals by expanding on their previous work. For entirely new research directions, Scheidt said seed funding within the University “nucleates that activity.”
“It’s both exciting and also expected that we are actively pursuing new opportunities,” Scheidt said.
Scheidt said he dedicates 20 to 40 hours of intense work per application, with around 20-30% of his time spent working toward them while balancing other faculty obligations.
The length of submissions can reach over a hundred pages, Shankman added. Each encompasses high-level project aims, a blueprint of study, descriptions of investigator roles, institutional environments and additional other regulatory details.
Shankman said he takes three to six weeks of significantly devoted time for a grant application and submits between 12 to 15 applications annually.
During the application process, Shankman said he works with grant administrators that act as liaisons to the Office of Sponsored Research and work to ensure compliance with federal regulations and accurate budget breakdowns.
OSR supports the entire grant process, from pre-award proposals to contract management and financial logistics.
Feinberg Prof. Judy Moskowitz said labs in Feinberg operate as a “small business” under the NU umbrella, with an expectation to generate the salaries for her and her team.
“Ideally, you would have one big project at a time, and you would have time at the end of that project to write it all up and disseminate your findings and really think deeply about what would the next thing be,” Moskowitz said. “That’s not how it works.”
Moskowitz said she is left to divide her time across projects. Instead of focusing on “really completing the project well,” she is simultaneously working on the next grant application.
Within the “chaotic” present state of the NIH, where funding is now less reliable, Moskowitz said she and other researchers are working to diversify their funding by applying more to options from foundations and private donors.
Moskowitz submitted more than 20 funding applications in the past year, an increase from previous years.
“We have to be constantly refreshing our funding to support our teams and to keep the science moving forward,” Moskowitz said.
McCormick Prof. Federico Ciardo said he chooses to invest more time into each application, rather than submitting for every opening.
Having started at NU in September 2024, he said NU’s staffing package supported his preliminary trials before applying for an NSF grant in January. By investing time on preliminary trials, he aimed to show the peer reviewers the potential and feasibility of his research.
“I wanted to show that these theoretical and numerical models can be developed, and so I obtain preliminary results, which takes time,” Ciardo said.
Currently managing a mid-sized lab group, Ciardo said he feels no pressure to rush to submit for every funding cycle.
Though the application process remains a consistent expectation, Scheidt said the pursuit of new opportunities is also an exciting part of the research journey.
By drawing upon prior research to uncover something new, he said the process pushes him to be reflective and aspirational as he explores new avenues of discovery.
“We spend a lot of time doing it,” Scheidt said. “But I think it’s a labor of love.”
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly described which funds are earmarked for “indirect costs.” The Daily regrets the error.
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