It has been a rough couple of weeks for the National Science Foundation (NSF). Until early April, NSF had managed to avoid the level of destruction and politicization that the science community was witnessing at the National Institutes of Health within the Department of Health and Human Services and the Institute of Educations Sciences within the Department of Education. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) recently visited NSF, instructing staff to terminate current grants and stop awarding new ones. In addition, NSF dismantled most of the agency’s advisory committees (ACs).
On April 18, NSF announced that it would terminate grants “not aligned with NSF’s priorities,” including awards relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion and misinformation/disinformation. To this end, the division of grants and awards returned all grant proposals previously approved for funding and awaiting final signoff to the program officers who oversaw the initial review. FABBS understands that the second review led to the termination of more than 406 grants, with roughly 90 of those from the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate.
This announcement to terminate grants came the day after the Ranking Member of the House Science Committee, Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), had released the report Defunding the Hidden Figures: A Rebuttal of Erroneous Attacks on Merit-Based, Fair, and Competitive STEM Grants and sent a letter to NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan stressing the importance of protecting the Foundation’s gold-standard merit review process.
According to NSF-funded scientists, some have been asked to adjust wording in proposals to better reflect priorities of the current administration. While scientists report welcoming the opportunity to keep their funding and complete the approved work, they have noted that some of the very changes that they are now being asked to make are the exact points that they were encouraged to include under the past administration. Scientists have found themselves in the middle of a political tug-of-war, wasting valuable time and resources. NSF has a tested process for evaluating the intellectual merit and the broader impact of proposed investigations and FABBS encourages NSF to honor it.
Furthermore, according to those sources, NSF has paused efforts to make any new awards. Future research funding will prioritize projects that align with the focus areas defined in the American COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2020: increasing U.S. economic competitiveness, advancing public health and welfare, supporting national defense, fostering partnerships between academia and industry, enhancing the STEM education system and public science literacy, and expanding participation by women and minority groups in STEM. FABBS notes that NSF is not being encouraged to prioritize areas laid out in the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. Despite its bipartisan support, the Trump administration has publicly criticized the legislation, perhaps because it is viewed as a significant Biden success.
Also last week, NSF moved to dismantle all ACs not explicitly authorized, including for the SBE and STEM Education (EDU) Directorates. FABBS members, leaders in their fields, have served on both ACs, providing input from the scientific community on directorate programs. FABBS regularly attended SBE and EDU AC meetings, which were largely open to the public and provided updates on directorate initiatives, activities, and funding opportunities.
An email to inform AC members that NSF considered that the committees ‘have fulfilled the purposes for which they were established’ referenced an Executive Order (EO), Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy. The February EO directed the termination of several federal advisory committees and ordered the identification of more for termination. The email stated that the goal was to minimize waste, fraud, abuse, and inflation, and to promote American freedom and innovation.
The Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom developed this resource for NSF-funded principal investigators if NSF requests a change in your work. If you have had your grant terminated and would be willing to speak about the experience with Congressional staff or the media, please contact FABBS at info@fabbs.org.
