2/28/25: USAID Cuts Hit University Research, Including Respected Soybean Labs (Inside Higher Ed) Annually, the foreign aid agency awards universities about $350 million in grants to research solutions to global crises. Researchers warn of long-term harms if Trump shutters the agency. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2025/02/28/how-cuts-us-aid-agency-hinder-university
2/28/25: GOP push for DOGE cuts inflames talks to prevent shutdown (The Hill) Growing calls among hard-line House conservatives to incorporate cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) into a developing government funding bill are complicating efforts to avert a shutdown two weeks ahead of the looming deadline. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5168069-doge-cuts-shutdown-goverhment-funding-conservatives/
See also: DOGE is now dramatically raising the potential for a government shutdown (Politico) https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/27/doge-gop-shutdown-spending-00206536
2/28/25: Trump’s Executive Order on DOGE Cost Efficiency: Key Takeaways for Government Contractors (JD Supra) https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/trump-s-executive-order-on-doge-cost-1901388/
See also: President Trump Signs New Executive Order: “Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Cost Efficiency Initiative”—What Federal Contractors Need to Know (National Law Review) https://natlawreview.com/article/president-trump-signs-new-executive-order-implementing-presidents-department#google_vignette
2/28/25: HHS Cuts Public Comment Requirement for Some Agency Functions (Bloomberg Law) The Department of Health and Human Services is breaking with 50 years of agency practice and will no longer use notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures for “matters relating to agency management or personnel or to public property, loans, grants, benefits, or contracts,” Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Friday. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/pharma-and-life-sciences/hhs-cuts-public-comment-requirement-for-some-agency-functions?context=search&index=6
2/28/25: Trump Tells Agencies to Plan for ‘Large-Scale Reductions in Force’ (Inside Higher Ed) The memo from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management applies to all federal departments, and the Department of Education could face heavy cuts as a result of Trump’s promise to “sweepingly reform” what he calls a “bloated, corrupt federal bureaucracy.” https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/02/28/trump-tells-agencies-plan-mass-layoffs
2/27/25: Inside the Collapse at the NIH (The Atlantic) The lights at the NIH are on; staff are at their desks. But since late January, the agency has issued only a fraction of its usual awards —many in haphazard spurts, as officials rushed grants through the pipeline in whatever limited windows they could manage. As of this week, some of the agency’s 27 institutes and centers are still issuing no new grants at all, one NIH official told me. Grant-management officers, who sign their name to awards, are too afraid, the official said, that violating the president’s wishes will mean losing their livelihood.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/02/nih-grant-freeze-biomedical-research/681853/
2/27/25: US universities curtail PhD admissions amid Trump science funding cuts (Nature) Some universities across the United States are reducing or halting their PhD admissions because of federal-funding uncertainties stemming from actions taken by the administration of US President Donald Trump . Few universities have released public statements about their strategies, so prospective graduate students have remained mostly in the dark about which institutions are cutting back. Nature spoke to several young scientists caught up in the confusion. Some have received e-mails from universities indicating that they would have been accepted if not for funding uncertainties; others have been told that programmes are completely paused. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00608-z
See also: US Universities Reduce PhD Admissions in Response to Federal Funding Cuts (TheScientist) https://www.the-scientist.com/us-universities-reduce-phd-admissions-in-response-to-federal-funding-cuts-72734
2/27/25: Trump credit card freeze sparks alarm at health agencies (Science) Some researchers at U.S. health agencies are already telling ScienceInsider the order, which applies across the government, will have major implications if additional exceptions are not granted. “It will block all kinds of purchasing,” says one scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) who spoke on condition of anonymity. A social media account claiming to represent NIH researchers worried the freeze will stymie supply purchases by labs and prevent NIH’s Clinical Center from buying medicine for patients in clinical trials. https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-credit-card-freeze-sparks-alarm-health-agencies
2/27/25: NSF downsizes summer research program for undergraduates (Science) The National Science Foundation (NSF) is shrinking its support of a long-running program that offers summer research opportunities to thousands of college students—many from groups historically underrepresented in science. https://www.science.org/content/article/nsf-downsizes-summer-research-program-undergraduates
2/26/25: NIH ban on renewing senior scientists adds to assaults on its in-house research (Science) Policy follows firings of tenure-track scientists and suspension of training programs. https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-ban-renewing-senior-scientists-adds-assaults-its-house-research
2/26/25: Trump administration loophole snags US research grants from Lyme to lung disease (Reuters) The Trump administration has for weeks been blocking the U.S. National Institutes of Health process for issuing new research grants for everything from Lyme disease to lung and heart disease, according to researchers, a departing NIH official and documents. The government is using a loophole to hold up the money. The NIH was directed by the administration not to take a key step in the approval process — publishing grant meeting notices in the Federal Register, the documents show. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-administration-loophole-snags-us-research-grants-lyme-lung-disease-2025-02-26/
