Overview

• Governor Maura Healey on July 31 unveiled the DRIVE initiative to inject $400 million into state research and development to fill gaps left by President Trump’s funding cuts.
• The plan directs $200 million to a MassDevelopment-managed fund supporting projects at hospitals, universities, and independent labs and $200 million to a reserve for public higher education research positions.
• Revenues from the millionaires tax and interest on the state’s rainy day fund will finance the initiative without drawing on general appropriations.
• A newly created Research Catalyst Fund will let private investors contribute alongside public dollars to expand project pipelines.
• Now before the legislature, the bill marks the first state-level countermeasure to Trump administration cancellations of $3.15 billion in NSF and HHS grants that threatened Massachusetts’s research workforce.