Universities and research institutes have launched an urgent appeal to the National Treasury for R150m in emergency funding as they prepare for the prospect of the Trump administration pulling all US support to SA scientists.
SA universities and research institutes have already seen dozens of grants terminated and fear the rest are in jeopardy too, after a series of moves against science by US President Donald Trump’s administration.
Trump has terminated hundreds of grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health to scientists in the US and further afield, and the future of thousands more remains uncertain.
This comes hard on the heels of the administration’s decision to end research grants to SA scientists that were administered by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and freeze foreign assistance to SA due to its stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict and alleged persecution of Afrikaners.
The SA Medical Research Council is co-ordinating scientists’ efforts to find alternative sources of funding, and is applying to the Treasury on their behalf for emergency funding in terms of section 16 of the Public Finance Management Act, according to council president Ntobeko Ntusi.
“We have developed a very strong and compelling business case. We are asking for emergency relief of R150m for this year, and we may go back to ask for more,” he said.
The Treasury could use provisions in the Public Finance Management Act to make an immediate disbursement, as it had done during Covid-19.
The Medical Research Council will host a funders’ forum next week, in which it hopes to secure commitments from foundations, research institutions, and the private sector, Ntusi said.
The US has historically been the world’s biggest funder of biomedical research, with SA the largest recipient of competitive grants awarded to projects beyond its borders.
Many of these grants have been won by scientists at SA’s most research-intensive universities — University of Cape Town (UCT), Wits the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Stellenbosch University and the University of Pretoria, said Universities of SA chair Francis Petersen.
Preliminary figures collated by the Medical Research Council show the National Institutes of Health had awarded grants valued at more than R1.2bn to SA researchers in the current fiscal year.
UCT received the most grants (155), followed by Wits (110), the University of Stellenbosch (96) and the Africa Health Research Institute (38).
“We need to act fast. The impact is broad — it not only affects the research enterprise output and the training of the next generation of scientists, but it will have an impact on our global rankings [if] there is a fall in the output of key indicators like publications,” Petersen said.
A university’s academic research is a crucial aspect of its global standing, as data on publications, citations in leading journals and research funding are among the indicators used to rank institutions.
“The risk is not only to projects, but ... you will have to lay off people and there is a potential loss of skills to other parts of the world,” he added.
Ntusi said Wits and UCT had already begun retrenching staff due to the loss of National Institutes of Health grants.
University vice-chancellors met government ministers on Tuesday to discuss the effects of Trump’s executive orders on the higher education sector.
The meeting was led by minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni and higher education & training minister Nobuhle Nkabane, and was briefed by deputy finance minister David Masondo on the budget’s proposed allocations to the higher education sector.
The budget tabled in mid-March contained no provisions for the potential gap in research funding left by Trump’s moves, which have intensified in recent weeks.
“Obviously, universities and other research [entities] will have to look at diversifying their income streams in the medium term, but there is an understanding that we need to explore strategies as a collective to assist with that gap in the interim,” Petersen said.
Update: April 16 2025
This story has been updated with new information.
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