In the face of federal grant cuts, UW-Madison’s research head learns to pivot in her first year

Then the executive orders poured in. Her plans had to change.

“I remember driving home and getting like a million texts. I was like, ‘Why would my colleagues text me at 5:15 p.m. on a Friday?’” said Grejner-Brzezińska, UW-Madison’s Vice Chancellor for Research, recalling the first executive order that would affect campus research. “I came home and said ‘OK, back to work.’”

It’s been a turbulent year for federally funded research, leaving universities and colleges that rely on those dollars scrambling to comply with the Trump administration’s executive orders that experts say put the future of research in an uncertain place.