Years of increases in federal research spending are coming to a halt, and top universities like MIT fear they will have to make cutbacks in cherished projects.
The cuts will be felt most sharply by schools where the research emphasis is on the physical sciences as opposed to medicine. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is among those schools, projects that its federal funding will be flat or down in the coming year. An MIT nuclear fusion reaction experiment funded by the Department of Energy is one project expected to take an immediate hit: It would run for 12 weeks next year, down from 17 weeks this year.
''That whole ability to have a good idea and get funding for it and pursue it is in our DNA," said Alice Gast, vice president for research and associate provost at MIT. Gast said she worries that the flattening budget and other changes in the research environment could stymie technology innovation at leading academic centers.
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