By Dariana Guzman
For The Diamondback
Federal cuts to scientific and medical research could lead to massive job losses and economic setbacks. A team of researchers from several universities, including the University of Maryland, is mapping where those impacts will hit.
The Science & Community Impacts Mapping Project brings together an interdisciplinary team led by university biology professor Joshua Weitz and University of Pennsylvania postdoctoral fellow Alyssa Sinclair.
The interactive map translates information from federal funding databases to show how proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health could affect the economy and employment nationwide.
“Our goal is to demonstrate how these impacts go beyond just individual institutions and actually ripple out to impact broader communities and how that impact is spread out nationally, across the whole country, in red states and blue states alike,” Sinclair said.
[UMD president Darryll Pines discusses federal pressure in State of the Campus address]
The data comes from NIH grants, census records and Grant Witness, which track terminated and frozen grants.
A large part of the researchers’ work has been analyzing information as it becomes available, Weitz said.
“But in other circumstances, when it comes to things like terminations, then we use data sets that are coming from some groups who are really dedicated simply to keeping up with terminations,” said Weitz, who is also this university’s Clark Leadership Chair of data analytics.
In Prince George’s County, the map showed a recorded economic loss of $6.1 million and 27 jobs as of Wednesday, with an estimated future economic loss of $49 million and 211 jobs.
Nationwide, the data shows a current economic loss of $11 billion and 49,000 jobs, with a projected future annual economic loss of $17 billion and 72,000 jobs as a result of the funding cuts.
[DOGE website says it cut nearly $15M from UMD grants]
Mallory Harris, a contributor to the project and a postdoctoral associate at this university, said it is important that this information is shared transparently with the public.
“That’s really important right now, to make sure that people have a sense of what’s happening and that they will be supported even if their research funding gets removed or their research gets attacked,” she said.
Weitz suggested students look at the data and reflect on how the cuts could affect their opportunities.
He said the project aims to provide information for students so they can recognize how local the impacts can be. He hopes students understand even public universities in Maryland can lose previously awarded grants.
In September, the research team received a $336,000 award from Open Philanthropy, a grantmaking organization, which aims to further expand their efforts.
Sinclair said the team hopes to use the funds to look at cuts to other federal agencies.
“We plan to expand,” she said. “We’re also planning to think about other outcomes that we might be able to measure.”
