President’s Budget Released, Eyes Turn to Congress

February 12, 2020

On February 10th, the administration kicked off the annual federal budgeting process by releasing a proposed budget for fiscal year (FY) 2021. For the fourth straight year, President Donald Trump proposed sizable reductions in federal research budgets of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Congress has not only rejected similar proposed cuts in the past, but also provided

NSF Holds Panel and Showcase on Natural Disaster Resiliency

January 29, 2020

On Tuesday, January 28th, the National Science Foundation held an interactive showcase in the Rayburn House Office Building with five speakers introducing their Natural Disaster Resiliency projects. Many of these grants were awarded in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

Guest speakers included: Dr. Robin Murphy, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University; Dr. Rebecca Morss, National Center for Atmospheric Research; Dr. Ilkay Altintas, San

Legislation to Double NSF Budget in 10 Years Introduced in the House

January 29, 2020

On Tuesday, January 28, members of the House Science Committee introduced H.R. 5685, the Securing American Leadership in Science and Technology Act. SALTA would authorize doubling science budgets over 10 years, including the National Science Foundation. The bill recommends $9.4 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2021, a significant increase over the FY 2020 $8.3 billion. The Research and Related Activities budget line, which includes the NSF research directorates, would grow

Open Access and “Zero Embargo” Rumors

January 15, 2020

In early December, the science community started hearing rumors about an Executive Order (EO) that would require all federally-funded research to be available to the public at the time of publishing in place of the 12-month post-publication embargo period outlined by the 2013 “Holdren memo”. These rumors suggested that the EO would be effective immediately and was coming from somewhere other than the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). It has since been