5/8/25: Exclusive: NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions (NSF) T he National Science Foundation (NSF), already battered by White House directives and staff reductions, is plunging into deeper turmoil. According to sources who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, staff were told today that the agency’s 37 divisions—across all eight NSF directorates—are being abolished and the number of programs within those divisions will be drastically reduced. The current directors and deputy directors will lose their titles and might be reassigned to other positions at the agency or elsewhere in the federal government. https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-nsf-faces-radical-shake-officials-abolish-its-37-divisions
5/8/25: Energy Department Aligns Award Criteria for For-profit, Non-profit Organizations, and State and Local Governments, Saving $935 Million Annually (DOE Press Release): In three new policy memorandums, the DOE announced that it will follow best practices used by fellow grant providers and limit “indirect costs” of DOE funding to 10% for state and local governments, 15% for non-profit organizations, and 15% for for-profit companies. https://www.energy.gov/articles/energy-department-aligns-award-criteria-profit-non-profit-organizations-and-state-and
5/8/25: Renewal of NIH grants linked to more innovative results, study finds (Nature) In its bid to reduce government spending and rein in ‘woke’ science, the administration of US President Donald Trump has, over the past three months, terminated about 800 active research grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Now, a study published late last month in the journal Scientometrics 1 highlights the long-term benefits of renewing existing grants, finding that US scientists who received renewals from the NIH over the past four decades produced more novel research than those who didn’t. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01420-5
5/8/25: Harvard Leaders See Only Bad Outcomes Ahead as They Battle Trump (New York Times) … behind the scenes, several senior officials at Harvard and on its top governing board believe that the university is confronting a crisis that could last until President Trump is out of power, according to three people involved in the discussions. Even if Harvard’s legal case is successful, these officials say, the school will still face enormous troubles that may force the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university to rethink its identity and scale. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/us/harvard-trump-court-case-negotiation.html
5/8/25: Trump’s diversity purge freezes hundreds of millions in medical research at universities across the country (CNN) Universities across the country are scrambling to comply with President Donald Trump’s anti-diversity push in an effort to hold on to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants that fund critical medical research in areas such as cancer and maternal health. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/05/08/politics/universities-medical-research-funding-frozen-trump-diversity-purge
5/8/25: Institutionalizing politicized science (Science, Editorial) T he opening months of the Trump administration represent a historic disruption to America’s scientific agencies. Staff have been fired or reassigned in the name of efficiency, resulting in chaos. Grants have been canceled mid-project for featuring the wrong words. “Pauses” and “reviews” are designed to block spending, in the hope that Congress will make the current impoundment of funds a baseline for permanent disinvestment. While the scientific community waits to see what the new normal will be, the Trump administration has a plan to institutionalize a much more politicized structure of control over government broadly, including both public scientific investments and the use of scientific knowledge in policy actions. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady6128
5/8/25: Inside OSTP’s ‘promote’ and ‘protect’ science and tech strategy (NextGov) “The U.S. government spends about $150 [billion] to $170 billion a year on R&D,” he said. “We need to direct that and prioritize those dollars into the areas that are most important for [the] national security mission.” Deregulation is also foundational policy. Kratsios said that removing regulations that act as “barriers to innovation” will help foster progress in the technology stack within the U.S. https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2025/05/inside-ostps-promote-and-protect-science-and-tech-strategy/405063/
5/7/25: Trump’s NIH Axed Research Grants Even After a Judge Blocked the Cuts, Internal Records Show (Propublica) For more than two months, the Trump administration has been subject to a federal court order stopping it from cutting funding related to gender identity and the provision of gender-affirming care in response to President Donald Trump’s executive orders. Lawyers for the federal government have repeatedly claimed in court filings that the administration has been complying with the order. https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-nih-cuts-transgender-research-grants
5/7/25: Implementation Update: Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research (NOT-OD-25-112) The purpose of this notice is to inform the biomedical research community of the following immediate actions NIH is taking in response to the May 5, 2025, Executive Order on Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research . https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-112.htm l
5/7/25: Reminder About Inclusion of Participants in Clinical Research (NIH Extramural Nexus) https://grants.nih.gov/news-events/nih-extramural-nexus-news/2025/05/reminder-about-inclusion-of-participants-in-clinical-research
5/7/25: Brown MIT lad lawsuit against US government in sweeping science funding cuts (Boston Globe, COGR quoted): https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/06/metro/brown-mit-sue-nsf-research-federal-funding-cuts-trump-doge/
5/7/25: Trump floats going after more schools’ tax-exempt status (Politico) “I think so, yes,” Trump said on the Hugh Hewitt Show when asked whether he’d consider broadening his revocation threat. “We’re gonna look for that, where we find them. Sometimes it’s out of control, but you don’t see it. It’s not so obvious. With Harvard, it was very obvious, you look at it, totally antisemitic.” https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/07/trump-taxes-harvard-universities-00334582
5/6/25: America’s Coming Brain Drain (Foreign Affairs) China is an increasingly formidable rival on this front. Since announcing the “Made in China 2025” plan in 2015, Beijing has invested in a whole-of-government focus on advancing critical emerging technologies. Now, China is giving the United States a run for its money. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/trump-universities-war-america-coming-brain-drain
5/5/25: NSF moves to enact cap on indirect costs (C&EN, COGR Quoted) In an emailed statement to C&EN, Matt Owens, president of COGR (an association of research institutions), agrees that the new NSF policy is “a disaster in the making for American science & technology and our nation’s continuing competitiveness.” https://cen.acs.org/policy/research-funding/NSF-moves-enact-cap-indirect/103/web/2025/05
