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Ronald J. Daniels
President
Our commitment will not waver.
On a summer day in 1940, Vannevar Bush, a former dean of engineering from MIT, approached the Oval Office for a meeting with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In his hand was a single sheet of paper, a pitch for an Office of Scientific Research and Development, a new government organization that could harness the engines of research at America's higher education institutions to protect against the looming storm clouds of World War II.
After just 15 minutes, Bush hurried out of the room with that single sheet of paper, an additional line of text scribbled across its margin: "OK—FDR."
That one line served as fertile soil for an extraordinary compact between research universities and the federal government that, for eight decades, has propelled American innovation, ingenuity, and prosperity.
Indeed, generations of Hopkins researchers have brought the benefits of discovery to the world, fueled by the federal funds earned on the power and merit of their ideas. They devised revolutionary technologies like the mind-controlled prosthetic arm and pacemaker. They conceived lifesaving treatments for cancer and cardiovascular disease. They charted new frontiers in space exploration and modern genetics.
However, a fast and far-reaching cascade of cuts to federal research funding across higher education is badly fraying this long-standing compact.
As America's first research university, Johns Hopkins has had extraordinary success in competing year after year for merit-based grants and contracts, and consequently, we, more than any other American university, are deeply tethered to the compact between our sector and the federal government. Last year, for instance, nearly 50% of our total incoming funds derived from research conducted on behalf of the federal government. The breadth and depth of this historic relationship mean that cuts to federal research will affect the transformational work of faculty, students, and staff and ripple across our university.
As I have shared with our community, we have difficult days ahead of us, and we are planning for those challenges with a keen focus on our mission and our commitment to excellence.
In the work ahead, we will not waver from our foundational commitment to the research ideal. Research is our hallmark, and its essential instruments—freedom of inquiry and expression, academic excellence, marshaling of evidence, rigorous and open debate, and an embrace of a rich tapestry of backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints—form our core values.
In his seminal report on the thriving partnership between government and universities issued as the storm clouds of World War II began to part, Vannevar Bush wrote, "As long as publicly and privately supported colleges, universities, and research institutes are vigorous and healthy … there will be a flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it."
For this reason—among so many—I believe universities are indispensable to our country's future, and I thank you for the part you have and will play, as we chart our path forward together for Johns Hopkins and our work of impactful discovery for the nation and the world.
Ronald J. Daniels
President
