By Geoff Feinstein
Despite state Rep. Robyn Gabel, D-Evanston, claiming “there is no pork” in the 2026 Illinois budget, there is at least one piece: $7 million to move the University of Illinois’ pigs.
The $7 million grant is to move the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign’s swine research center to a new location. Administrators want the pigs to vacate so they can redevelop the land.
The Swine Research Center is around 10 acres and hosts “a surgery suite, storage facility, a small feed manufacturing facility, animal housing, and animal support space.” Its research primarily focuses on “nutrition, metabolism, reproduction, and behavior.” The relocation appears to refer to the Imported Swine Research Laboratory, which focuses on “biomedical sciences that use pigs as a model for human health and medicine.”
University leaders said the relocation has been a priority for more than a decade –not because the facilities are inadequate, but because the pigs sit on valuable research park land the university wants to redevelop. Administrators cite odors and land constraints as the main reason for the move, while acknowledging the project is driven more by campus planning than research needs.
Despite exploring proposals for over a decade, UIUC has struggled to secure its own funding for the relocation. Yet, in fiscal year 2025, the institution received nearly $1 billion in total public and private awards. This includes $185.9 million from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, $111 million from the National Science Foundation and $81 million from the U.S. Department of Energy. Its endowment currently stands at $2.4 billion, and undergraduate tuition and fees range from $18,000 to $50,000 a year.
With all that money, the justification for an additional $7 million outside the state’s standard budget for the university remains unclear. Because this grant came at the last minute, there was no public scrutiny to determine whether it is a good use of taxpayer dollars.
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