Hopkins on the Hill, the biennial meet-and-greet with Washington insiders to show off the latest federally funded research at the Johns Hopkins University, is usually a pretty humdrum affair.

This year, Hopkins dropped the science fair vibe and adopted an urgent plea: Keep funding us because we’re actually a good bang for the buck.

“This work is very much still important, and we’re working to show that,” said Hopkins researcher Brittany Jenkins-Lord, who presented at the event about her research to reduce breast cancer deaths in Black women.

After the Trump administration launched a broadside attack against the way the federal government has funded major research universities across the country, Hopkins has been forced to wage a campaign of its own, including a more robust showing in the bowels of a congressional building cafeteria, where Hopkins on the Hill held its event last month.

Some of the battlefronts are easy to spot: lawsuits in the courts and hiring GOP-led lobbyists to work the halls of Congress on the university’s behalf. But Hopkins’ leadership is also employing a new softer-power approach designed to help sway public opinion while trying to avoid the wrath of President Donald Trump.

For Hopkins that means a revamped marketing campaign built on new messaging on its social media, in press releases and on a brand new website. They all highlight the therapies and cures that spring from the science performed with taxpayer dollars in Hopkins’ labs.

It remains to be seen if multipronged campaigns like Hopkins’ will be successful, or if fighting more aggressively, as Harvard University has done, or trying to negotiate, like Columbia University, will win the day.

“This is not a world that rewards whispering,” said Danny Franklin, a partner at Bully Pulpit International, a Washington, D.C., communications firm with ties to the Biden White House and a large roster of corporate clients. “Universities need to be vocal and establish their interests in a way that transcends political fighting.”

What’s critical for all the research universities is ensuring the public understands what’s at stake, said Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, president of the American Medical Association and a brain cancer survivor who relies on a medication to slow tumor growth developed at Duke University with federal funding.

“Yes people will hear this, but are they listening in a way that they help bring changes?” Mukkamala asked.

What’s at stake

Universities have long had to press the White House and Congress to allocate more biomedical research funding.

Under the Trump Administration, the rules of the game have changed, experts say. A new report from the Association of American Medical Colleges tallied up $3.8 billion in grant funding cuts across the nation by the National Institutes of Health, the largest funder of biomedical research. Hopkins has long been one of the nation’s largest recipients of NIH funding.

“Funding has enjoyed bipartisan support for decades,” said Heather Pierce, the association’s senior director for science policy and regulatory counsel. “The institutions have always made the case for funding, but now it’s even more important.”

The Trump administration has particularly aimed its budget knife at research projects connected to what it sees as promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. Research on vaccines, which have been criticized by federal Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, has also become a target.

The cuts span federal health agencies, including cuts to grants from the National Science Foundation and the federal Departments of Energy and Defense.

When the Trump administration shut down the federal U.S. Agency for International Development and cut foreign aid — costing Hopkins about $800 million and leading the university to cut 2,000 jobs globally — there was some public outcry. But because of the political environment, the public moved on to the next issue, noted Franklin, the public relations expert who does not represent Hopkins.

University leaders fear slashing the health and science budgets will lead to a massive drain on the scientists and discoveries of new treatments and cures. The infrastructure will be difficult to rebuild.

“We need a comprehensive effort to get the word out about what will happen if the American research system is broken,” said Cybele Bjorklund, Hopkins’ vice president of federal strategy.

Federally funded research, Bjorklund said, “primes the pump for American discovery and plays a key role in the American economy, not just in Baltimore and in other regions known for academic research.”

Hopkins, based in Baltimore, and the University System of Maryland, with a dozen institutions across Maryland, are among the state’s largest employers, and research cuts of this magnitude are expected to have significant ripple effects. United for Medical Research, a research advocacy group, estimates NIH funding alone supports $5.3 billion in economic activity in Maryland and more than 22,500 jobs.

How it started

In the beginning, Hopkins turned to the courts for help.

The Trump administration upended hundreds of millions of dollars in federally funded research in February when the president ordered the National Institutes of Health and other agencies to slash the indirect cost rate to 15%. Hopkins, for example, has an indirect rate of 56%, which is additional funding on top of the grant awarded that is typically used for building maintenance, library resources and administrative support.

When researchers receive grants, most of the money goes to expenses related to their work, such as equipment, supplies and salaries. The government also negotiates to provide additional funding based on a percentage of the original grant. That extra funding can be used forindirect costs, such as building maintenance, library resources and administrative support.

So Hopkins sued to recover the money. Last month, Hopkins joined about a dozen other universities in filing a friend-of-the-court brief backing Harvard University in its legal battle with the administration over federal funding.

In the newest lawsuit filed June 16, Hopkins also became a party to a case with about a dozen other universities and associations against the Defense Department over cuts to indirect funds. Hopkins said it had 341 grants worth $436.5 million and could lose about $22 million a year.

Universities so far have won some reprieve from the courts to stop cuts at the NIH and the Energy Department temporarily as the cases wind through the legal system.

But Pierce of the medical college association argued that “the occasional successful appeal is nowhere near what we need to get back on track.”

To that end, Hopkins is ticking up its lobbying budget this year and turned to lobbyists with access to Trump administration officials and their allies.

According to federal disclosure firms for the first quarter, Hopkins’ lobbying spending grew 13%, to $350,000 this year from $310,000 in 2024. Hopkins also hired more lobbyists with Republican backgrounds, including those who recently worked for Senator Roy Blunt and Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer. The lobbyists did not respond to a request for comment.

On the web

Soon after it headed to court, Hopkins launched another prong of its strategy: rebranding to emphasize how life-altering its research is for Americans.

Press releases now emphasize research is “funded by” or “supported by the National Institutes of Health.”

A new website called Research Saves Lives details how Hopkins spends its millions from the federal government.

There are intimate stories about how federal support has played an instrumental role in the research behind treating and curing lung cancer, cystic fibrosis and genetic disorders.

It draws from Hopkins’ own ranks, including neuroscience professor Richard Huganir, who contributes to the site and speaks directly with reporters to explain how the research pipeline works.

The universities, Huganir said, long ago agreed to take on much of the country’s basic scientific work, the basis from which drugs, therapies and cures eventually spring.

“A lot of these cures come from studies 20 years ago, basic scientific studies, into how the brain or the kidneys or the heart works, and that leads to understanding what goes wrong in cardiac disease, schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s disease,” he said.

“The very basic research leads to drugs that treat or cure a disease, and we have very good examples,” he added.

Karen Sfanos, a prostate cancer researcher who was one of the first Hopkins faculty members to contribute to the website, admitted she’s not usually inclined to speak with the public about her work.

“But being a cancer researcher, I know that the most important and innovative discoveries that lead to tangible treatments and cures for cancer patients starts in academia,” Sfanos said.

Universities haven’t always done a great job “connecting the dots” for the public to understand the importance of federally funded research, said Marina Cooper, Hopkins’ senior associate vice president for integrated marketing and brand.

That’s likely because they’ve never had so much at stake, she said. Now, the university is encouraging these researchers and others to talk, take to social media, march and even wear T-shirst with a the hashtag, #RSL, for Research Saves Lives.

Face to face

At Hopkins on the Hill, more than three dozen researchers made their case for federal funding to Capitol Hill staffers.

Jennifer Richards, a researcher at the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, and her colleague Abagail Edwards were promoting their research into finding ways to improve health for Native American children, funded in part by HHS.

“We are really here to ask for continued support,” Richards said.

The researcher also noted that her project, which helps prevent sexually transmitted infections like syphilis, will help save the federal government money in the long term, “one of the administration’s clear priorities,” she said.

That idea found its way into other researchers’ presentations, too.

Keeve Nachman, also a public health professor, discussed his team’s efforts to build a mobile laboratory outfitted in a white van to assess public health risks from breathing industrial air pollution for residents of nearby communities.

“Hopkins is doing everything they can to support our work, but some grants have been cut or reduced,” said Nachman, whose work has received support from a slew of federal agencies.

For the broader public to understand the crisis and support the restoration of cuts, the institutions will have to keep at it, she said.

“Institutions are having to make hard choices: what research they do, how many people they employ, how many students they accept the following year,” Pierce said. “It’s not an overstatement to say what is happening today will affect the global competitiveness of the country.”

This story was updated to reflect the economic activity that NIH funding supports in Maryland.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.