Fed Update: COGR News Digest

Council on Governmental Relations (COGR)

9/15/25Transmitter

  International scientific collaboration is more necessary—yet more challenging—than ever

These partnerships accelerate neuroscience by enabling researchers to share resources and expertise, as well as generate more relevant and reproducible results. But new federal funding restrictions in the United States are putting such collaborations in jeopardy.

9/15/25Inside Higher Ed

NIH Now On Track to Spend Its Full Budget by Sept. 30

The National Institutes of Health now appears on track to spend its full $47 billion budget by Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year,  STAT News reported  Friday. That reflects “a frenzy of grantmaking activity during August,” worth more than $8 billion, STAT noted; the agency was far behind on awarding grants going into the summer, due to  delays in the grant review process , the  fight over the cap on indirect cost rates  and  widespread layoffs  at the Department of Health and Human Services.

9/14/25Politico

Democratic mayors are backing colleges even ‘if we're going to get our a—es handed to us’

The Trump administration’s decision to withhold federal funds from schools that don’t abandon diversity efforts and adopt new antisemitism policies is forcing universities to submit or risk losing the cash. That financial fallout could start to bleed into the communities these universities call home.  Harvard froze its hiring  and Northwestern University began laying off hundreds of employees amid funding cuts and new restrictions

9/12/25NOT-OD-25-155

  New Application Structure for NIH-Funded International Collaborations

NIH defines a  foreign component  as the performance of any significant scientific element or segment of a project outside of the United States, either by the recipient or by a researcher employed by a foreign organization, whether or not grant funds are expended.

9/12/25Science

  Far more authors use AI to write science papers than admit it, publisher reports

The new study, run by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), investigated the 10 journals the society publishes. AACR launched it after some authors questioned whether the peer-review reports on papers they had submitted were AI-generated, says Daniel Evanko, who oversees AACR’s editorial systems. It made use of a recently developed AI detector the AACR team and  others say  appears to be highly accurate.

9/12/25AIP, COGR Mention

  ‘Nearly Unmanageable’ Research Regulations Tackled by New Academies Report

A committee convened by the National Academies recently produced 53 proposals to reduce the red tape surrounding federally funded research without sacrificing its integrity, security, or value. The  recommendations   published last week are the result of an  expedited effort   to inform the Trump administration’s push to  cut regulations   and reduce federal funding for research.

9/12/25Axios

  Exclusive: Kratsios details White House AI plans

The government wants AI to accelerate quickly in the U.S. — and it's about to take the first steps to remove as much red tape as possible, Office of Science and Technology Policy director  Michael Kratsios  told Axios in an exclusive interview.

9/11/25IP Watchdog

Government Taking a Cut of University Royalties Would Threaten Bayh-Dole’s ROI

“If put into practice, [Lutnick’s plan is] much more likely to shoot American innovation in the foot than to create a promising source of government revenue.”

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