The amount of money Northeastern gets for indirect research costs has grown each year since the university was classified as having some of the highest research activity in the country in 2015.

The Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex building Dec. 3. Northeastern saw federally funded operating grants decrease by $23 million dollars between the 2024 and 2025 Fiscal Year.

Northeastern’s federally funded operating grants and contracts decreased by around $23.1 million — or 8.97% — between Fiscal Year 2024 and Fiscal Year 2025, the university’s annual financial audit showed. This reduction is the first time the figure has decreased since Northeastern became an R1 institution in 2015.

Since Northeastern was granted the R1 classification by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, a designation that indicates a university has some of the highest research activity in the country, the amount of federal support the university has received for research and related operations has increased each year. (There is no publicly available data on the figure before 2015.)

Associate Dean for Research in the College of Science Erin Cram said the change is due to the Trump administration’s funding cuts.

“The decrease is attributable to the termination of grant programs, reductions in available funds to award grants, and the general slowdown in processing of awards from federal sources,” Cram wrote in a Nov. 10 email to The Huntington News.

Vice President for Communications Renata Nyul said in a Nov. 22 statement to The News that the university lost some funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency Public Assistance Program, which in part reimburses nonprofits for expenses “related to COVID-19 … weather-related incidents, etc.,” she said.

In the 2024 fiscal year, the total the university received in operating grants and contracts — or external funds awarded under formal agreements to support specific research or other mission-related projects — from the federal government was $268 million, compared to the $245 million Northeastern received in Fiscal Year 2025. Since Fiscal Year 2015, total operating grants and contracts increased by $159 million, according to Northeastern’s financial statements.

As a result of the Trump administration’s nationwide effort to cut federal grants to research it deems “woke,” more than 40 grants to Northeastern have been eliminated this year. According to an October analysis by The News, the nine Northeastern-led grants that were eliminated in 2025 totaled $17.6 million, although it is unclear how much of those funds were spent before the cuts.

In a Sept. 30 interview, Provost Beth Winklestein told The News that Northeastern had “fared really well” in terms of grant terminations.

There was no universal upward or downward trend in the amount of operating grants and contracts Northeastern’s peer institutions received between the two fiscal years. Georgetown University saw a $19.5 million decrease in its total federal operating grants and contracts, falling from $207.3 million in the 2024 fiscal year to $187.8 million in the 2025 fiscal year. That excludes direct lending, or loans provided by non-bank lenders directly to private companies. Conversely, Boston University saw an $81.1 million increase in revenue from grants and contracts, rising to $658.1 million in 2025 from $577 million in 2024.

The university’s indirect cost funding has steadily increased from $54 million to $62 million, or around 14%, since it became an R1 institution in 2015, according to Northeastern’s financial statements. Indirect costs are included in all federally-funded operating grants and contracts and are used to cover the administrative and facility costs of a research project. The amount of indirect costs the university receives could change if President Donald Trump were to implement a 15% indirect cost cap, the constitutionality of which is still being decided in federal courts.

About the Contributors

Frances Klemm is a third-year international affairs and cultural anthropology major with minors in french and journalism practice. She is also a community co-op at Boston.com. At The News, she is the finance beat writer for the campus section and the women’s hockey beat writer for the sports section. You can follow her on X @frances_klemm.

Constantly with her camera, Margot Murphy is a third-year journalism major with a minor in psychology and photo editor of The News. From Peruvian sports stories to performative profiles, Margot dives headfirst into the photojournalism scene. She can’t wait to hone her craft and experiment with photography styles while listening to “Last Son” by David Fleming for the nth time. You can find her on Instagram at @margs.murphy and @murph.photo.