Harvard Braces for Decline in Federal Funding - NICHOLAS P. FANDOS and SAMUEL Y. WEINSTOCK, Harvard Crimson

As Washington lawmakers scramble to reach a last-minute budget deal before the end of the year, Harvard and other research universities are bracing for what would be the most dramatic cut in federal research funding in recent history. Failure to come up with a compromise to avert the so-called fiscal cliff by midnight Monday will trigger an 8.2 percent across-the-board cut in non-defense discretionary spending. As a result, Harvard will lose out on millions of dollars in promised federal grant money for the 2013 fiscal year. Because the cuts will be applied to the current fiscal year, which began July 1, the loss in sponsorship will be compounded onto the second half of the fiscal year, worsening the blow for the remainder of the 2013 fiscal calendar. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/12/30/sequestration-research-budget-cuts/