July 2025: FY 2026 R&D Appropriations Dashboard (AAAS) The below dashboard compares White House, House, and Senate spending proposals for science and technology programs in FY 2026. It will be updated regularly as the funding debate unfold. Click on different tabs to explore by agency, and mouse over for more detail. https://www.aaas.org/news/fy-2026-rd-appropriations-dashboard
7/14/25: Columbia Reportedly On Verge of Settlement With Trump (Inside Higher Ed) Columbia University is preparing to strike a deal with the Trump administration, taking steps to address alleged civil rights violations on campus in exchange for the release of $400 million of withheld federal funds , The Wall Street Journal and CNN reported. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/07/14/columbia-reportedly-verge-settlement-trump
7/14/25: University Leaders Propose New Research Funding Model (Inside Higher Ed) “The key foundational issue we’re dealing with isn’t really an indirect cost model, it’s to keep America in a global leadership role in science and engineering research, and to be accountable to and transparent with taxpayers,” said Kelvin Droegemeier, the former White House Office of Science and Technology policy director who helped create the FAIR model, in an interview with Inside Higher Ed. “This is simply one mechanism to help make that happen.” https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2025/07/14/university-leaders-propose-new-research-funding
7/14/25: China’s shift towards ‘organized research’: how can coordination and innovation co-exist? (Nature) In the past two decades, China has made big advances in scientific research, and its rise to the top of the 2025 Nature Index tables highlights this shift (see go.nature.com/45vf99n ). According to these metrics, which track and fairly compare each country’s contributions to research articles in top journals, China has surpassed the United States in producing high-quality natural-sciences research (see ‘High-impact research’). https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02199-1
7/14/25: California Was Decades Ahead of Loper Bright on Agency Deference (Bloomberg Law) One year after the US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo , federal administrative law doctrine seems to now be aligned with principles that California courts have been applying for nearly 30 years. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/pharma-and-life-sciences/california-was-decades-ahead-of-loper-bright-on-agency-deference?context=search&index=2
7/13/25: How Trump’s crackdown on universities is affecting the world (New York Times) The Trump administration, saying it wants to root out antisemitism and liberal indoctrination, has frozen billions of dollars in federal funds to universities. This has had profound effects. Harvard has sued the administration , after it cut billions in research dollars and tried to ban the school from accepting international students. Under pressure from President Trump, the University of Virginia’s president has been forced to resign . Those are only the most visible, immediate signs of the battle. Soon, Mr. Trump’s ideological war against universities could have much broader effects on the technological supremacy America has enjoyed for decades and on science itself. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/07/13/us/2025-06-06-int-science-reaction-index.html
See also: How US Universities Became So Vulnerable to Government Threats (Bloomberg) Article Link
7/13/25: From Science to Diversity, Trump Hits the Reverse Button on Decades of Change (New York Times) It should come as no surprise that Mr. Trump would try to undo much of what President Joseph R. Biden Jr. did over the past four years. What is so striking in Mr. Trump’s second term is how much he is trying to undo changes that happened years and even decades before that. At times, it seems as if he is trying to repeal much of the 20th century. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/us/politics/trump-reversal-better-times.html
7/11/25: Senate panel rejects Trump’s proposed cuts to agricultural research (Science) A key Senate spending committee has joined its House of Representatives counterpart in rejecting deep cuts that President Donald Trump’s administration proposed for research at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the 2026 fiscal year that begins on 1 October. https://www.science.org/content/article/senate-panel-rejects-trump-s-proposed-cuts-agricultural-research
7/11/25: Scientists hide messages in papers to game AI peer review (Nature) Some studies containing instructions in white text or small font — visible only to machines — will be withdrawn from preprint servers. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02172-y
7/9/25: ‘Science Fair’ of Lost Research Protests Trump Cuts (Scientific American) A few dozen scientists protested the cancelling of their research grants by the US government at a ‘science fair’ staged yesterday in Washington D.C. The event, organized by Democrats on a US House of Representatives science committee, is the latest to oppose actions taken by the administration of Republican President Donald Trump to slash US science spending . https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-fair-of-lost-research-protests-trump-cuts/
7/6/25: HHS devises legal playbook for future grant terminations, internal memo shows (STAT) Guidance from the Office of the General Counsel at the Department of Health and Human Services, obtained by STAT, outlines a new legal advisory process and advice to staffers on the justifications for terminations that could make them less susceptible to court challenges. https://www.statnews.com/2025/07/06/hhs-nih-grant-terminations-legal-guidance-internal-memo/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=rasa_io&utm_campaign=newsletter
7/6/25: These scientific advances were ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ Will they continue? (Washington Post, Opinion) Is the scientific enterprise riddled with waste and fraud, as some in Washington insistently allege? Some experiments don’t work — I’ve had some duds. But we learn from our mistakes; failure is not always a waste. And allegations of widespread fraud in the scientific enterprise are not just entirely unproven; they make no sense. If I receive funds from NASA, I have to account for them, and officials at both my college and NASA review my accounts. Carefully. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2025/federal-science-funding-cuts-united-states/
