As Harvard University and the Trump administration negotiate a funding stalemate, billions of dollars of research grants hang in the balance.
The two sides have only weeks left before a September 3 deadline, when a judge has been asked to rule on whether the government’s $2-billion-plus rollback of federal research funding violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights.
While the Trump administration has axed funding to dozens of schools, few have as much at stake as Harvard. The total value of affected Harvard University grants sits at around $2.4 billion, according to a CNN analysis of data from Grant Witness, a volunteer effort tracking grant terminations from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Grant Witness collects data by combining firsthand reports from scientists with information released in federal databases and other official sources.
Only Harvard has taken on the White House directly in court. Other prominent schools have backed out of the fight and opted for settlements. In July, Columbia agreed to pay more than $220 million to restore as much as $2.6 billion in grant funding, according to Grant Witness’ records through August 19. Other Ivy League schools, such as Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania, have also struck deals with the administration to restore funding.
The Trump administration was optimistic about the possibility of reaching a deal with Harvard after it announced the settlement with Columbia.
“While there’s a lawsuit pending with Harvard, and I’m sure that lawsuit will play out, I do hope that Harvard will continue to come to the table with negotiations. Those talks are continuing, and we’d like to have a resolution there, outside of the courts,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a phone interview with CNN in July.
The case has become a flashpoint in a major clash over academic freedom, campus oversight and federal funding.
Although $2.4 billion represents the total value of Harvard’s canceled grants, a better measure of the research impact is the unspent grant funds. Grants from the NIH and NSF are often multi-year, typically doling out money annually over time. The unpaid frozen or terminated funds represent an estimated $1.3 billion that scientists were counting on to continue their research. While some groups have launched successful legal challenges on a case-by-case basis to restore funding, it’s currently unclear if any of Harvard’s grants have been reinstated or to what degree. Harvard did not respond to a request for comment.
A wide range of research areas have been affected across Harvard’s scientific projects, including ALS research, cancer studies and research into emerging biological threats. The Trump administration cut billions of dollars in grants following what the White House said was a breakdown in discussions over combating antisemitism on campus and other ideological disagreements.
Many of the canceled grants may have involved topics like gender identity and DEI initiatives, and systemic inequality and marginalized communities — subjects that have become frequent targets of criticism from President Donald Trump and conservative lawmakers.
While it’s unclear how the administration chooses grants to terminate, Grant Witness tracks grants that contain key words that the New York Times has reported the administration has sought to limit or avoid in the federal government. These words could appear in the grant’s title, abstract or public health relevance statement and may have been used to identify grants for termination.
More than a third of the 639 canceled Harvard NIH grants contained keywords associated with the topics of race and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).
More recently, the White House has raised the stakes again, bringing the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) into its battle to pressure higher education and extract significant concessions from universities. On July 31, the government canceled a wave of grant funding at UCLA, working out to about $1.2 billion in total awards value, with about half of that yet to be paid out to researchers, according to estimates from Grant Witness.
UCLA reported approximately $584 million in funding was at risk in early August. To restore its research grants, the Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement from UCLA, among other concessions, which, if agreed to, would mark the biggest settlement it has received from a higher education institution to date. However, a federal judge has already ruled against some of the grant cancellations. Earlier this month, California district court judge Rita F. Lin ordered the NSF to restore a portion of the suspended grants at UCLA and the University of California and blocked further cancellations for the school system. UCLA did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
As the September 3 court deadline looms, many are pushing for Harvard to see the legal battle through. Earlier this month, a letter signed by over 14,000 Harvard alumni, faculty, students and members of the public urged the university to reject any deal with the Trump administration that “cedes the university’s autonomy.” However, representatives from both Harvard and the administration have engaged in private talks about finding a way out of their legal standoff, according to CNN reports.
So far, Harvard hasn’t capitulated. President Alan Garber told faculty that retaining its academic freedom remains nonnegotiable, according to the student-run Harvard Crimson newspaper. Three faculty members familiar with the matter told the Crimson that Garber said he prefers to resolve the dispute in court.
“Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government,” Garber wrote in April.
CNN’s analysis is based on data collected by Grant Witness. Grant Witness collects data on terminated federal research grants by combining firsthand reports from scientists with information released in federal databases and other official sources. These include USAspending.gov, NIH RePorter, HHS TAGGS and others. Grant Witness specifically tracks terminations of grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Grant Watch is a non-funded effort spearheaded by volunteers, such as research scientists at US universities or members of nonprofits, such as rOpenSci. The database is updated multiple times per week. CNN’s analysis includes data as of August 19, 2025. While most self-reported grant terminations are supported by at least one secondary source, a small subset may be based solely on the reporting scientist’s account. This can be due to factors like slow or irregular updates to federal databases.
