Microbes may hold the key to brain evolution
January 8, 2026
Roughly one week after Northwestern signed an agreement with the federal government to restore federal research funding that had been frozen since April, those funds have begun flowing back to the University. This essential funding supports the groundbreaking work of Northwestern’s faculty, staff and students, protects the positions of many colleagues supported solely by grant funding, and enables the University to continue to be one of the world’s greatest institutions of higher education.
Northwestern received payment of tens of millions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Monday, Dec. 8, and the University expects payments to continue throughout the month of December. According to the agreement, the federal government will restore all eligible funds within 30 days, roughly by the end of the calendar year. These funds are reimbursements for the research expenses that Northwestern has supported since last spring, allowing much of our research to continue during the freeze period.
In a message to faculty with NIH and Department of Defense (DOD) grants sent today, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Mandy Distel and Vice President for Research Eric Perreault said NIH reimbursements “have been unfrozen and are now being paid.” They said the University has lifted all spending restrictions on previously frozen NIH awards and has begun processing subcontracts on those awards.
“The Office for Research and Business and Finance teams are working hard to process payments, respond to questions and resume the normal operations of our world-class research enterprise,” Perreault said. “We look forward to supporting our researchers during this transition period.”
To support these efforts, the Office for Research has published a Frequently Asked Questions webpage that is being updated as needed.
In addition, the Department of Defense has begun reversing stop-work orders on some of the University’s awards; as of today, roughly half of our DOD stop-work orders have been reversed. Those awards that are no longer under a stop-work order can proceed without spending restrictions, Distel and Perreault said.
All restored federal funds are restricted to allowable research expenditures and will reimburse Northwestern for the costs it absorbed to sustain federally sponsored projects during the freeze; they are not available for expenses unrelated to research on the awards that were previously frozen.
“This has been a difficult stretch for Northwestern’s research community,” Perreault said. “I am proud of everyone’s dedication and resilience during this challenging time and look forward to working with them as we restore full operations and press forward on the discoveries that define Northwestern.”
