“一场大屠杀”：特朗普政府将终止哈佛大学的数十项联邦拨款
【中美创新时报2025 年 5 月 16 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）特朗普政府对高等教育的打击再次升级，已终止哈佛大学及其医学院的数十项研究经费，危及数十个研究项目，并可能颠覆年轻科学家的未来。最新的解雇通知影响到了该大学广大的研究团体。《波士顿环球报》记者克里斯·塞雷斯对此作了下述报道。
根据《波士顿环球报》收到的电子邮件，依赖联邦政府资助研究癌症、传染病和其他广泛课题的哈佛大学研究人员周四开始收到来自多个联邦机构的集体解雇通知，其中包括美国国立卫生研究院、美国国防部和美国能源部。
终止通知威胁到哈佛大学数千万美元的研究经费，并影响到该校广大科学界人士，包括依赖联邦资金收入的研究生和博士后研究人员。
自4月中旬特朗普政府冻结22亿美元的拨款和合同以来，哈佛大学的研究人员一直在准备迎接一波又一波的解雇通知。然而，即使在资金冻结之后，许多研究人员仍然希望冻结能够解除，或者他们各自的项目能够获得豁免。
现在，收到正式通知后，许多年轻科学家对自己的未来感到焦虑，而其他人则在努力寻找方法来弥补预计的联邦资金损失。
一些科学家此前已收到解雇通知和所谓的“停工令”，告知他们研究项目的资金已被冻结。然而，据哈佛大学师生称，周四是多个联邦机构首次同时发出解雇通知，影响到从文理学院到医学院的整个哈佛大学研究人员。
“（周四）发生的事情规模之大令人难以想象——对研究和更广泛的社区来说是一场血洗，”哈佛大学陈曾熙公共卫生学院LGBTQ健康卓越中心副教授兼创始主任布列塔尼·查尔顿说道。该中心的联邦资助已于今年3月终止。“整个实验室都崩溃了，领取培训补助的年轻科学家可能突然迷失方向；原本可以改变生命——或者拯救生命的工作——却陷入了停滞。”
就在特朗普政府发出一系列解雇通知的前一天，哈佛大学宣布将拨出 2.5 亿美元来弥补特朗普政府削减的部分资金。
根据哈佛大学与《波士顿环球报》分享的信件，截至周五早上，哈佛大学管理人员召开了紧急会议，并向焦虑的教职员工和学生发送了一系列电子邮件，指导他们如何应对。
哈佛医学院管理部门的一封电子邮件称，在过去几天内，该医学院几乎所有有效的联邦拨款均已被终止。
这封发给哈佛医学院教职员工的信中写道：“我们怀着极其遗憾和悲伤的心情，向大家传达这一令人深感不安的消息。联邦政府的这些行为，对于我们所有关心研究人员工作及其发现对人类产生的积极影响的人来说，是难以完全理解的。”
信中敦促研究人员即使资助被终止也要继续开展项目。信中还鼓励他们将非人事支出限制在“基本需求”范围内。
周四下午晚些时候，解雇通知陆续到达许多研究人员的收件箱，令许多人感到意外。
哈佛大学陈曾熙公共卫生学院计算生物学和生物信息学教授兼生物统计学系主任约翰·夸肯布什 (John Quackenbush) 表示，周四他在飞往密歇根湖的途中（前往北卡罗来纳州参加侄女的婚礼）突然在收件箱中发现了两封来自美国国立卫生研究院的解雇通知。
他的心沉了下去。其中一份终止通知危及了奎肯布什领导的一项为期七年的研究项目，该项目利用尖端数据分析技术绘制癌症进化图谱。另一份通知则是一项培训资助，旨在资助11名研究生和博士后研究人员。他说，这些终止通知总计影响了超过700万美元的资助和多年的工作。
“对我来说，这真是沉重的打击，”奎肯布什说。“这些都是我们随着时间的推移建立、培育和发展的项目。感觉就像有人踢了我的肚子。”
2023年，哈佛大学约10%的收入来自联邦拨款和合同，其附属医院在全美获得联邦卫生研究拨款的医院中名列前茅。
这是一个正在发展的故事，将会更新。
题图：一名行人经过马萨诸塞州波士顿的哈佛医学院。 图片来源：Craig F. Walker/《波士顿环球报》员工
附原英文报道：
‘A bloodbath’: Trump administration moves to terminate scores of federal grants at Harvard
The latest termination notices affect a broad swath of the university’s research community.
By Chris Serres Globe Staff,Updated May 16, 2025, 1 hour ago
A pedestrian passes Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
In yet another escalation of its fight against higher education, the Trump administration has moved to terminate scores of research grants at Harvard University and its medical school, imperiling dozens of research projects and potentially upending the futures of young scientists.
Harvard researchers who rely on federal grants to study cancer, infectious diseases and a broad range of other topics began receiving termination notices en masse on Thursday from a number of federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the US Department of Defense and the US Department of Energy, according to emails shared with the Globe.
The termination notices threaten tens of millions of dollars in research funding for Harvard and affect a broad swath of the university’s scientific community, including graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who are dependent on federal funding for income.
Related: Harvard to dedicate $250 million toward supporting research enterprise
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Harvard researchers have been bracing for a large wave of termination notices since the Trump administration moved in mid-April to freeze $2.2 billion in grants and contracts. Yet even after the funding freeze, many researchers held out hope that the freeze would be lifted or their particular projects would be exempted.
Now, with official notices in hand, many young scientists anxious about their futures, while others are scrambling to find ways to replace the anticipated loss of federal funding.
Some scientists had already received termination notices and so-called “stop work orders,” in which they were notified that funding for their research projects had been frozen. Yet, Thursday marked the first time that the multiple federal agencies sent termination notices all at once — affecting researchers across the university, from the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences to the medical school, according to faculty and students.
“The scale of what happened [Thursday] is incomprehensible — a bloodbath for research and the wider community,” said Brittany Charlton, associate professor and founding director of the LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, whose federal funding was terminated in March. “Entire labs are unraveling, and young scientists on training grants may be suddenly adrift; work that could change lives — or save them — is being brought to a standstill.”
The barrage of termination notices by the Trump administration came a day after Harvard University announced that it will dedicate an initial $250 million toward backfilling some of the Trump administration’s funding cuts.
By Friday morning, Harvard administrators called emergency meetings and fired off a series of emails to anxious faculty and students, with guidance on how to respond, according to letters shared with the Globe.
An email from Harvard Medical School administration said that, within the past several days, nearly all of the medical school’s active federal grants have been terminated.
“It is with great regret and sadness that we deliver this deeply unsettling news,” said the letter, which was sent to Harvard Medical School faculty and staff. “These actions by the federal government are difficult to fully comprehend for all of us that care deeply about the work of our researchers and the positive impact their discoveries make on humankind.”
In the letter, researchers were urged to continue to work on their projects even if their grants were terminated. They were also encouraged to limit non-personnel spending to “essential needs only,” according to the letter.
The termination notices began arriving in many researchers’ inboxes late Thursday afternoon — and caught many by surprise.
John Quackenbush, a professor of computational biology and bioinformatics and chair of the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said he was flying over Lake Michigan on Thursday — en route to his niece’s wedding in North Carolina — when he spotted two termination notices in his inbox from the National Institutes of Health.
His heart sank. One of the termination notices imperils a seven-year research project, led by Quackenbush, using cutting-edge data analytics to map the evolution of cancer. The other notice was for a training grant that supports 11 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. All told, the termination notices affect more than $7 million in grants and years of work, he said.
“For me, it was a body blow,” Quackenbush said. “These are projects that we built and nurtured and evolved over time. It was like someone had kicked me in the gut.”
In 2023, Harvard received about 10 percent of its revenue from federal grants and contracts, and its affiliated hospitals rank among the nation’s top hospital recipients of federal health research grants.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
