UK launches NIH grant public awareness campaign on social media, says not related to threats to funding
By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News
The University of Kentucky has launched a video series to highlight how National Institutes of Health grant-funded research drives the university’s role in advancing health in Kentucky and the country.
The video campaign allows Kentuckians to hear from UK researchers about their NIH-funded biomedical research through short videos that can be viewed on the following channels: YouTube: @universityofkentuckyresearch, Instagram: @ukresearch, X: @ResearchKY, LinkedIn: UK Research Communications.
The 19 videos feature a range of research topics, including Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, cancer, spinal cord and brain injury, substance use, diabetes, Covid-19, aging and more.
And though the video campaign comes as threats to NIH grants from the Trump administration are ongoing, UK Acting Vice President for Research Ilhem Messaoudi said at an online press conference that this was not the impetus for the video campaign.
“We’ve actually been working on this campaign for a bit, and we really wanted to just have that spirit of being just proud of the work that we do, the impact that we have in our community as we look forward to how do we go from where we are right now to a bigger and more impactful research portfolio,” she said. “And so part of it is to get everybody engaged, get everybody really excited about the work that’s happening, and have everybody be aware of the research.”
Asked later about how much of the university’s research is funded by NIH, compared to private funding, Messaoudi said, “The majority of our funding is federal dollars.”
In her news release, she said, “In fiscal year 2024, federal agencies awarded UK $264.4 million (54.1% of UK’s total awards for research). NIH funding made up $163.1 million of our federal awards.”
A fact sheet provided by UK says the research and development at UK has a “direct and significant” economic impact on Kentucky, noting that the $527.7 million UK spent on research and development in fiscal year 2024 generated $937 million in economic activity across the state.
“As a result, 4,712 jobs were supported throughout the state of Kentucky, with 2,376 (50%) of those jobs directly supported by research initiatives,” according to the fact sheet.
John Gensel, director of the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center whose NIH-funded research aims to restore movement after spinal cord injuries, pointed to these numbers at the press conference, saying, “And so, yeah, it’s a big portion of the research funds that we have for the university. But that return on investment outside of the research work, I mean, . . . the return on investment is in improving patients’ lives, but there’s a very big economic return on investment too.”
Gov. Andy Beshear, in an April 18 interview with Harvard’s Center for Health Communication, talked about his concerns about the Trump administration’s proposed NIH cuts to research, and the impact it would have on everyday people.
“We cannot emphasize enough the human toll and the human impact, because sometimes you use the word research, and it sounds very sanitized, but what it is is whether or not some of our folks that are struggling to hold on to hope the most will have fewer options right now and in the immediate future.”
UK President Eli Capilouto has also posted a webpage to keep Kentuckians up to date on federal policy and resources regarding research funding and other issues that impact the university.