INSTITUTIONS ARE REELING from the federal government’s swift pull back from investments in higher education, climate resilience, and critical research. Even as lawsuits wind their way through the nation’s courts to halt some of the cuts and challenge the Trump administration’s demands, the head of the University of Massachusetts system sees an opportunity to fill the gaps.

This week on The Codcast, reporter Jennifer Smith talked with up with UMass President Marty Meehan, who described a national higher education ecosystem shaken by uncertainty but far from flattened. His “State of the University” speech last week centered on the need to continue investing in climate tech – technologies and services that enable decarbonization of the global economy.

“I think on climate tech and green technology, we have an obligation as a public research university to work with our governor, who has laid out a very aggressive and nationally significant state policy on climate tech,” Meehan said. “The fact that many other states in the country are not doing this – many of their actions in climate tech are frozen – is an opportunity for Massachusetts to show national leadership.”

That the federal government “may not be as interested” in the technology as it was under the Biden administration makes the responsibility even greater, he said.

The five UMass campuses have explored different approaches to climate research, Meehan noted. Existing work includes UMass Amherst’s research into water treatment and purification, and the UMass Boston Stone Living Lab’s installation of North America’s first-ever living seawalls in Boston Harbor.

UMass Dartmouth will “anchor the Blue Economy Corridor,” Meehan said, by advancing sustainable fisheries management, marine technology, and ocean sciences. While UMass Lowell aims its manufacturing and electronics research toward climate tech, UMass Chan Medical School will include instruction on how best to confront the disproportionate impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations.

Funding these investments will increasingly be a state project, Meehan acknowledged. Federal cuts have already had an impact: Several dozen applicants to the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at UMass Chan Medical School who received provisional offers of acceptance for Fall 2025 had those offers rescinded.

During the episode, Meehan discussed existing and future climate tech investments (03:00), the federal threats to the UMass system (8:25), and the letter from higher education leaders across the country objecting to Trump administration actions (17:15).