{"id":67597,"date":"2026-05-06T14:45:56","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T21:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.washington.edu\/research\/?page_id=67597"},"modified":"2026-05-07T13:00:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T20:00:51","slug":"horizons-newsletter-spring-2026","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.washington.edu\/research\/or\/horizons-newsletter\/horizons-newsletter-spring-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Horizons Newsletter – Spring 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published May 7, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n

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MESSAGE FROM THE VICE PROVOST<\/h2>\n

Spring at UW always seems to have a special energy. Days are getting longer, the flowers bring appreciative visitors, and admissions notices bring excited prospective students. For research, there is no better reminder of how vibrant our community is than the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium<\/a>, happening on May 15 this year – check it out!<\/p>\n

Looking back on the year, we have had a lot of good news. Across all three campuses, several new centers and institutes were launched reflecting a variety of disciplines, and major center grants were renewed. All three campuses were each re-designated as a Carnegie Community-Engaged Campus. AI@UW launched with a generous gift from Charles and Lisa Simonyi, and AI computing is getting a boost with the support of a federal appropriation supported by Senator Murray and a new agreement with Microsoft. Clinical trials have begun for the first vaccine against the SARS virus family that builds on technology developed by SOM Profs. King and Veesler, and NASA chose STRIVE, a university-industry-government partnership led by CoEnv Prof. Jaegle, for the next generation satellite mission. We also learned that the UW Physics Muon g-2 team won the 2026 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics! I could go on….<\/p>\n

While there is much to celebrate, we cannot ignore the very real challenges that we still face. The strong FY25 awards and expenditures reflect the momentum of success in prior years. In FY26, we are seeing the effects of federal policy changes and funding delays. FTE paid on federal sponsored research is down 20% relative to last year. Despite the modest cuts in the research budgets passed by Congress, new awards are down substantially, driven in part by the government shutdown and limited agency staffing. Further, increasing research regulations and new award terms make research more costly. At the same time, researchers are hampered by ongoing grant administration backlogs associated with processes that are unclear and not well optimized. Many of the administrative updates in this newsletter reflect this reality, and we\u2019ve initiated efforts to provide a framework for pursuing the strategic objectives of Operation Excellence.<\/p>\n

The need to build resiliency in research continues to be critical. So far, our efforts have included: expanding resources to support work with foundations and industry, creating a shared research facility website to raise awareness of resources, collaborating with UW IT to advance computing infrastructure, launching the Research Impact Advocates program, and charging task forces to assess and advise on improving research administration and operations. Ongoing work will build on the recommendations of the Provost\u2019s Research Resilience & Transformation faculty advisory group.<\/p>\n

More generally, we know from many of our successes that collaborations and partnerships (both internally and externally) are critical to resilience. Many of the new centers are a testament to our multi-disciplinary partnerships, including the Kren Engineering-Based Medicine Institute and the Paros Geohazard Center. We are also grateful to our external partners who are stepping up to support trainees, including the Moore Foundation for support of 16 postdocs in the sciences and industry partners Amazon and Microsoft for each supporting 10 graduate student fellowships. Our strong tri-campus partnership with PNNL (55 joint appointments and growing) enables new directions for advancing AI, quantum, and other disciplines.<\/p>\n

We are fortunate to be in a region where there are many opportunities for cross-sector partnering with communities, industry, other research institutes, and foundations. I look forward to embracing the UW Strategic Plan objectives to expand and strengthen our partnerships as an important component of research resilience and innovation.<\/p>\n

Mari Ostendorf<\/strong><\/a>
\nVice Provost for Research<\/p>\n

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ADMINISTRATION<\/h2>\n

Research Security: Restricted Party Screening<\/h3>\n

Restricted Party Screening (RPS)<\/a>\u00a0is a step in which an entity or individual is checked against various federal restricted party lists. Restrictions range from strict prohibitions to requirements for an export license or certain mitigating steps. RPS is conducted across the University and is not just relevant to research activity. Other activities include the following when there is an\u00a0international nexus<\/a>: Procurement activity, providing services, entering an educational\/academic agreement and licensing of intellectual property. The Research Security Office is setting times with units, Dean\u2019s offices and central offices to train on use of Visual Compliance software (screening tool). A unit can request training by e-mailing\u00a0researchsecurity@uw.edu.<\/a><\/p>\n

Research Security: International Activity Assessment Process<\/h3>\n

The\u00a0International Activity Assessment Process (IAAP)<\/a> is required prior to undertaking UW activities when:<\/p>\n

1) A party to the agreement\/transaction is located or headquartered in, associated with the government of, 50% or more owned or controlled by, a contractor or employee for, or subject to the jurisdiction of one of the countries of concern:<\/p>\n