With funding from the National Science Foundation and other government grants, scientists and meteorologists from the Center for Severe Weather Research study a storm in Oklahoma in 2017. They get close to supercell storms and tornadoes to better understand their formation and improve prediction.
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Drew Angerer/Getty Images North America
The National Science Foundation canceled all of its grant review panels this week, as the organization works to align its grantmaking process with new executive orders from the Trump administration.
The NSF funds a wide range of scientific research through grants to universities and research institutions. It convenes panels of experts to weigh the merits of those proposals, ultimately informing which receive federal funding. It has a budget of around $9 billion.
More than 60 of those meetings were scheduled for this week, all of which were abruptly canceled Monday morning. The move sparked confusion among panelists as to the extent of the pause. In a statement to NPR, an NSF spokesperson said that all review panels will be rescheduled. “This will allow the agency to make the best use of everyone’s time and resources as we continue to develop guidance to ensure compliance with the recent executive orders.”
Romi Burks, a biologist at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, had spent weeks preparing to serve on her NSF panel. “It’s a considerable amount of effort,” she said. “It’s extremely disappointing for it to be canceled for political reasons.”
Delays in grant approval inevitably mean delays in funding research. Those delays could threaten the scientists, who include tenured faculty, post-doctoral researchers and graduate students who often depend on grants for financial support. Delays also create extra uncertainty that makes it hard to plan, says Burks. Researchers need to schedule travel for field work, or arrange time to collaborate with colleagues. “All of these things cannot happen until you have notification,” she says. “It’s already a long time to get grants reviewed, any more time is just an increasing burden.”
It’s unclear which executive orders are responsible for the freeze, though researchers suspect it may be related to President Trump’s targeting of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. NSF reviews grant applications based on two criteria: intellectual merit and broader impacts. The latter is a catch-all term that assesses how the research would benefit society. Historically, a crucial component of those broader impacts relate to increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in the scientific process.
The pause comes at a time of heightened anxiety and confusion in the U.S. research community. Last week, the National Institutes of Health — the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world — canceled its scientific meetings and study sections, which also helps determine which research to fund.
NSF also has review panels scheduled for next week. An agency spokesperson declined to confirm whether they’d also be rescheduled.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced that it will freeze all grant reviews in response to recent executive orders issued by President Trump. The executive orders, which aim to cut funding for scientific research and limit the agency’s ability to support certain types of research, have raised concerns among the scientific community.
In a statement released by the NSF, the agency expressed its commitment to upholding the integrity of the scientific review process and ensuring that all research proposals are evaluated in a fair and impartial manner. However, the agency also noted that it will need time to assess the potential impact of the executive orders on its grant review process.
Scientists and researchers have expressed their dismay at the news, with many expressing concerns about the future of scientific research in the United States. Some have called on the NSF to take a stand against the executive orders and defend the agency’s mission to support cutting-edge scientific research.
As the NSF works to navigate these uncertain times, it remains to be seen how the agency will proceed with its grant review process and support the scientific community in the face of challenges posed by the Trump administration. Stay tuned for further updates on this developing story.
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- National Science Foundation
- Grant review
- Trump executive orders
- Science funding
- NSF grant freeze
- Federal grant review
- Research funding
- Government policy impact
- Science community response
- NSF grant process
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