The research and development environment is shrinking in the US, particularly in the sector we are in – the fundamental upstream of basic science and technology data; the government is placing a heavier emphasis on the downstream side of things that will generate more immediate profit. Overall, there’s less money for fundamental research and focus is starting to be placed more on AI, semiconductors, national security, engineering problems, etc. However, we have a broad portfolio and are in a better position to compete for funding than other universities.

Additionally, there are more regulations and burdens being placed around research security, causing the cost of research to go up without any funding for those costs. Flat state appropriations are not keeping up with inflation, and they’re not going to get any bigger than what they are now.

While the general/education budget – which is largely driven by student enrollment – does not directly impact the OSVPR budget, it does impact the fundamental financial viability of the university and our ability to hire faculty, etc. The OSVPR budget is separate, and it is tied to indirect cost recovery; it runs off of grant and industry success and facility uses. This means that our revenue streams vary over time, and they are being impacted by the ongoing federal changes happening around us. ARL is doing well, but the rest of the university is down 7% in agreements since this time last year.

The closing of seven campuses has been a stressful time that we are still working through. It has brought significant turmoil, and it does impact student recruitment. Financially, however, it has saved the university $46 million, which is a small step in bridging the gaps in revenue. The campuses that were closed were not generating much research revenue, in general and in federally supported research, so there is not a lot of impact on OSVPR in that regard.

Penn State’s Compensation Modernization initiative introduced a formal Career Progression process that allows employees to advance within their existing job string, rather than changing careers. Career Progression is based on an employee’s demonstrated ability to perform at the next level, rather than years of service, additional credentials/certifications, or increased workload. Advancement opportunities depend on the existence of a higher level within the job string, the unit’s operational needs, and available funding.

Managers are encouraged to discuss career progression opportunities with employees and work with their HR Strategic Partner (HRSP) to evaluate readiness and organizational needs. Employees seeking advancement should work with their manager to understand the qualifications and expectations of the next level.

Career progression requests require documentation demonstrating that the employee meets the responsibilities and qualifications of the higher-level role; the requests are then reviewed by HR, leadership, and Strategic Finance Partners to ensure consistency, appropriate funding, and alignment with the University’s guidelines.

Additional information about the process, including eligibility requirements and forms, is available on the HR website (Home Page | Human Resources) under Current Employee → Your Career → Career Progression. Job strings and associated levels are identified in the Penn State Job Catalog; additional levels may be established if there is a demonstrated business need for it.

No simple, blanket message exists on this issue, which was compared to the similar tension found in export control. Risk must be evaluated carefully and case-by-case, based on levels the institution has agreed to accept, and lab safety professionals are trusted to implement these standards. Unresolved concerns should be escalated until addressed, and a past instance was cited where a PI’s apparent noncompliance was traced to a management issue that was later corrected. A culture of excessive fear that could hinder research was cautioned against, with enforcement ultimately depending on judgment and escalation rather than rigid mandates.

Staff should feel safe raising concerns. Penn State should not have a culture where employees are afraid to speak up. If a staff member feels unsupported by their manager, they can escalate concerns to higher management, HR, STAC, USAC, or another manager.

Most faculty and staff work together effectively, and difficult faculty-staff relationships are not the norm. When conflicts do arise, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and the specific situation needs to be understood before determining an appropriate intervention. Frustrated faculty members may often escalate issues without fully understanding the underlying compliance, health and safety, or administrative requirements that staff are managing. Staff are generally not trying to obstruct research or other work. Stronger mentoring from academic leaders, such as institute directors and department heads, could help faculty navigate challenges more constructively, better understand institutional constraints, and improve collaboration with staff. Ultimately, better faculty mentoring is the most effective general solution.

The impact largely depends on the outcome of the collective bargaining agreement process, which is set to begin soon, and its direction and timeline are very difficult to predict at this stage. The University of Pittsburgh’s collective bargaining agreement was cited as a publicly available reference point, though Penn State’s process involves a different union and may raise different issues, making comparable outcomes uncertain. All employees, including staff, faculty, and wage/payroll employees, remain a priority for support.

The collective bargaining agreement process could take around a year or longer, though it may move more quickly depending on the topics discussed and where sticking points arise. It was noted that first-time agreements are sometimes easier to reach, as parties are still establishing working relationships and more difficult issues may be deferred. Even once an agreement is reached, its full consequences would likely take years to play out. Several potentially positive outcomes were highlighted, including greater clarity across the workforce, depending on how negotiations unfold. It was reiterated that Penn State, as a nonprofit, depends on ensuring its entire workforce remains well supported.

Dr. Read is strongly supportive of using 360-degree feedback evaluations and describes having recently completed one himself. He found the process highly valuable because it provided feedback from a range of stakeholders, including supervisors, peers, deans, and direct reports. The feedback offered both reassurance and constructive insights for improvement, helping him become a more effective leader.

Dr. Read was surprised to learn that this type of review was not more widely used and believes it could be implemented within OSVPR at relatively low cost. He suggests that managers could volunteer for a 360 review, or employees could recommend one for a particular manager through HR, with leadership ultimately deciding whether to proceed.

Overall, he views 360-degree feedback as an effective tool for leadership development and organizational improvement. He notes that other leaders who participated also benefited from the process and that new Workday features supporting bidirectional feedback could provide an additional avenue for gathering and sharing performance feedback.

Dr. Andrew Read highlighted the challenge of maintaining research expertise when federal funding priorities shift. Using Penn State’s strength in climate change research and atmospheric gas measurement as an example, he explained that if an administration deprioritizes climate change, funding can disappear even though the research remains critically important. This creates a dilemma: preserving a highly specialized workforce of graduate students, researchers, and principal investigators who possess valuable expertise despite uncertain funding prospects.

He noted that climate-related research will likely become increasingly important in the future, but the timing of renewed investment is unclear. Leaders must make difficult decisions about whether and how to invest institutional resources to sustain expertise during funding gaps. Similar challenges arise in other areas, such as planning for fluctuations in international student enrollment and determining appropriate staffing levels.

Dr. Read explained that current mechanisms, such as furloughs, are limited because they generally only cover short-term disruptions of up to six months, while the uncertainties facing universities may last much longer. He acknowledged that there are no easy solutions and emphasized that managing change and uncertainty is a difficult challenge not only for Penn State but for organizations across all sectors.

Dr. Read emphasized that professional development is a high priority and should be supported with dedicated funding. Drawing on his experience at the Huck Institutes, he noted that he established strong budget allocations for professional development, which were sometimes not fully utilized. He said he continues to support this approach in the units that report directly to him.

At the same time, he acknowledged that decisions about how much funding to devote to professional development are made at the unit level, where leaders must balance it against other budget priorities. Despite these trade-offs, he stressed that professional development is essential for keeping employees current with advances in science and the processes that support research.

Dr. Read warned that reducing professional development funding to address short-term budget pressures can create long-term negative consequences for the organization. He encouraged staff who feel their unit is not providing adequate professional development support to raise concerns through STAC representatives or Human Resources, as he would like to better understand and address such situations.

For units reporting directly to Dr. Read, budgets show up as line items. Some institutes may have numerous line items of their own for designated purposes and/or units within that institute. The budget comes from the top level, and directors then determine how to disperse the funds to each line item. Institutes that do not report directly to Dr. Read are given a budget that is reviewed periodically to determine how the funds are being used, if anyone is missing out, etc.

Dr. Read noted the importance of getting to conferences and forming networks amongst peers and leadership across the nation. From an operational perspective, it is critical to learn and understand the challenges we face and how other universities are handling them. It is also highly beneficial to the people attending the conferences – they are learning more, gaining more skills, and building the foundation for growth and promotion.

Dr. Read recognizes that relying solely on publication volume could encourage researchers to divide findings into multiple smaller papers rather than pursue comprehensive studies. To address this, Penn State looks beyond the number of papers produced and places greater emphasis on their impact, particularly citation rates and evidence that other researchers are actively building on the work. A single paper that attracts hundreds of citations may therefore be viewed as more valuable than many minimally influential publications.

Dr. Read also pointed to an alternative evaluation model used by organizations such as the Wellcome Trust and some NIH institutes: asking researchers to identify and explain their five most significant papers. This approach shifts attention from productivity in terms of quantity to the importance, originality, and influence of a researcher’s best work. Although Penn State does not currently use this exact system, Dr. Read suggests that it could be a better way to recognize the value of long-term, high-impact research and reduce incentives for “salami-slicing” publications.

Penn State’s F&A rate, currently in the high 50% range, covers essential research-related infrastructure and compliance costs. In 2025, a proposed federal cap of 15% threatened to create an estimated $100 million shortfall for Penn State’s research ecosystem. Advocacy by Penn State, national university organizations, and other institutions helped secure bipartisan congressional language blocking the cap, making such a reduction illegal for now. However, because future appropriations remain uncertain, particularly amid continuing resolutions and the 2026 election cycle, the issue may not be fully settled until 2027.

Although a large-scale cap appears unlikely in the foreseeable future, indirect-cost recovery remains vulnerable to more gradual restrictions. For example, proposed changes to federal uniform guidance could exclude certain expenses—such as approximately $12 million in library costs—from Penn State’s F&A calculations.

Dr. Read also described the current F&A system as politically unstable and potentially unsustainable. In the long term, Penn State may benefit from moving toward a model in which the full cost of each research project is charged directly and transparently to sponsors, rather than relying on a general indirect-cost pool. While implementing such a system would be disruptive and require significant operational and cultural changes, it could demonstrate that university research is less expensive than comparable industry work. The central principle is that sponsors should pay the actual cost of the research, rather than shifting those expenses onto students and families through tuition.

There are two separate issues: how to accelerate the movement from discovery to implementation, and whether the life sciences remain a national priority.

The current policy direction is somewhat unclear. National priorities appear to be shifting toward engineering and the physical sciences. The White House and OMB’s recent “Golden Age of Science” document seems to downplay the broader life sciences, while distinguishing them from fundamental biology. It appears to support basic, mechanistic research—such as identifying biological pathways—while expecting industry to develop commercial applications. The distinction is not entirely clear, but the overall direction seems to reduce the priority given to applied life sciences, which is concerning for a university with a strong agricultural focus.

Regardless of the policy environment, universities need to move faster. Research grants can take far too long to become operational: the Air Force reported that, nationally, universities take an average of 270 days from receiving an award to spending the first dollar. Penn State recently received a request from a Department of Health and Human Services agency to reduce that timeline to fewer than 30 days, even though the University’s monthly invoicing system is not designed for such speed.

Examples show that rapid execution is possible. A recent NSF proposal involving a completely new program, seven companies, and national laboratories was assembled in roughly two to three months and successfully funded at $20 million. Shorter grant timelines can be uncomfortable, but they demonstrate that faculty and institutions can move quickly when necessary.

Penn State therefore needs to streamline its administrative processes, create stronger incentives for rapid action, and develop a culture in which important research is pursued with greater urgency. If research is important to the country, it should be conducted and implemented as quickly as possible.