Fed Update: COGR News Digest

Council on Governmental Relations (COGR)

5/22 & 5/19 Updates on NSF FAQs:

5/22/25The Chronicle, COGR President Matt Owens quoted

  ‘Every Reve nue Source Is at Risk’: Under Trump, Research Universities Are Cutting Back

Matt Owens, president of COGR, which advocates on research policy, said the budget cuts to date have already had an impact. “The uncertainty unquestionably is slowing the pace at which research is performed,” Owens said. And the threat of a brain drain is significant. “For prospective grad students and early-career scientists, this is an inflection moment for them about their future,” he said

5/22/25

  Funding Cuts Are a ‘Gut Punch’ for STEM Education Researchers (New York Times

Change continues to ripple through the National Science Foundation as it tries to comply with the policies and priorities of the Trump administration. But the branch of the agency that funds STEM education research is  taking a disproportionate hit .

5/22/25Inside Higher Ed

  Trump Administration Strips Harvard’s SEVIS Certification

The government escalates its war with the university by withdrawing permission to host international students, who make up more than one-fourth of the head count.

5/22/25Inside Higher Ed

  Trump Adviser Blames ‘Scientific Slowdown’ on DEI, Red Tape

Science policy adviser Michael Kratsios wants private research funding to make up for the “diminishing returns” he says federal investments have yielded. But data shows that federal R&D continues to produce enormous value.

5/22/25Nature

  Scientific conferences are leaving the US amid border fears

Several academic and scientific conferences in the United States have been postponed, cancelled or moved elsewhere, as organizers respond to researchers’ growing fears over the country’s  immigration crackdown .

5/21/25

  NIH killed grants on orders from Elon Musk’s DOGE (Nature) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01617-8

Sworn testimonies from top NIH officials reveal that a DOGE representative directed them to terminate hundreds of specific projects. In addition, since early May, representatives of DOGE, which says that its goal is to cut government spending and regulations, have been screening all NIH awards before they’re released, according to internal correspondence that Nature obtained.

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