Dear Members of the HMS Quad Community:

As we enjoy some summer respite and take stock of the events of the past year, I want to convey my gratitude to each of you for remaining dedicated to HMS and our mission. You are the reason Harvard University is defending academic freedom, asserting its right to host exceptional international students, and advocating to sustain research funding in service of humanity.

Harvard believes in the promise of a healthier, more equitable future for all. We have important work to do.

Conviction, however, is only half the battle. We must also take concrete steps to ensure that the multiple recent affronts to our mission — to our ability to conduct lifesaving research, train the next generation of physicians and scientists, and serve people in the United States and abroad — do not deter us.

On Monday, Harvard President Alan Garber shared an update regarding Harvard’s financial stewardship and announced that the University-wide hiring pause for faculty and staff will continue. We are getting more details from the University on the FY26 budget implications referenced in the email and will share more information as soon as we are able.

Here at HMS, we had already announced in late April that we would extend the hiring pause until Sept. 1. We have likewise suspended school-funded travel and numerous renovation projects and improvement requests. We need to prevent our expenses from outpacing our revenues, which means the size and scope of our work will look different in the coming years.

Please know that we are actively managing these many challenges. Allow me to recap some of our efforts:

• The Advisory Council on Research Sustainability (ACRS, formerly the Research Sustainability Task Force), comprised of faculty and administrative leaders, has been meeting regularly since February to deploy our limited resources most efficiently. ACRS continues to inform the often-difficult decision-making that I have to make in collaboration with our preclinical department chairs, with whom I am in frequent contact. In addition to advising on the distribution of block grants — which will replace approximately 50% of the overall annual federal direct costs for each Quad research department, or an average of 74% when combined with discretionary funds applied thoughtfully by each department and lab — the committee is also advising on multiple policy areas including revenue generation, strategic planning for cores, and graduate program sustainability.
  
• Capitalizing on the Therapeutics Initiative, we continue to prioritize research alliances with colleagues in industry and see these as compelling opportunities. These will be patterned after our AbbVie collaboration, which provided $30 million of funding to a consortium of investigators across HMS, its affiliated institutions, and Boston University. Urgently convened during the COVID-19 pandemic, the AbbVie collaboration is a terrific example of how we can leverage academic and industrial collaboration to expand our impact on human health.
  
• We continue to aggressively pursue philanthropy to advance both our research and educational mission. Under Matt Durno’s leadership and in partnership with faculty, the HMS Alumni Affairs and Development team is making significant progress. In the past year we have received gifts from approximately 4,000 generous alumni and friends, including over 700 individuals who donated to HMS for the first time following Harvard’s response to the federal government’s demands earlier this spring. I have received a number of moving letters expressing solidarity with Harvard’s response to the federal government. Our fiscal year-end fundraising includes more than $8 million to support our MD-PhD students, as the federal funding for this program was recently terminated. We’ve also seen an outpouring of contributions in support of our junior faculty and postdoctoral fellows. We have raised more than $4.4 million and counting to support our postdoctoral fellows for the coming year.
  
• I am thrilled to announce a new financial commitment of $18.86 million from Len Blavatnik and the Blavatnik Family Foundation to extend their long-standing support of the Blavatnik Therapeutics Challenge Awards and launch the new Blavatnik Institute Early-Career Investigator Awards, with $5.75 million earmarked for Quad-based junior faculty awardees. Len has been our most generous benefactor, and these funds will make a meaningful difference to our community.
  
• Finally, our academic and senior administrative leaders are working in concert with faculty focus groups and other stakeholders from across the HMS community to update the School’s strategic plan. This is an important step toward articulating a vision for HMS within the limitations of reduced federal funding. I look forward to sharing more details on this in September.

Above all, I owe it to all of our scientists for maintaining our momentum and continuing to advance important research into the foundations of biology and disease. I remain hopeful that Harvard and HMS will regain federal funding. That said, even if we are successful in litigation, the proposed $18 billion cut to the NIH’s FY26 federal budget would still constrain our future, as well as the prospects for all health care organizations, institutions of higher education, and academic medical centers.

Harvard Medical School will weather this storm, but the current threats to biomedical research will have ripple effects across all of science and health care. The recently passed federal budget reconciliation bill will put extensive pressure on hospital systems and academic programs. Sadly, it will ultimately be patients and public health that will suffer.

Many of you have asked how you can help, and I have answered that communicating the value of your work has never been more important. The “threats to research funding” webpage created by our Office of Communications and External Relations features videos, first-person accounts, and news stories highlighting our researchers and their work with the goal of helping people grasp the current landscape and its effect on human health. There is also robust content on our HMS (@HarvardMed) and Harvard (@Harvard) social media channels, primarily Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Harvard also has a webpage outlining the ways people can advocate for Harvard and higher education. Please feel free to share this content with your networks and be sure to develop your own narrative.

The current challenges we are facing will test our mettle. Because we are a community of brilliant, creative, earnest, and dedicated scientists, clinicians, educators, staff, and students, I am confident that we will continue to do important work on behalf of our community, our country, and all of humanity. We are at our best when confronting challenge. Harvard Medical School will endure.

Sincerely,

George Q. Daley
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
Harvard University