Fed Update: COGR News Digest

Council on Governmental Relations (COGR)

12/1/25The Hill, Opinion

  A behind-the-scenes view of Trump’s war against higher education 

The response to the alleged politicization of universities was more politicization. Donald Trump has made this program  a cornerstone of his policy for dealing with higher education .

12/1/25Washington Post, Opinion

  The best and brightest scientists won’t put up with this

The assumption that top researchers will endure any visa hardship to stay in the U.S. is obsolete

12/1/25Nature

  China wants to lead the world on AI regulation — will the plan work?

Having placed artificial intelligence at the centre of its own economic strategy, China is driving efforts to create an international system to govern the technology’s use

11/29/25Inside Higher Ed

  Northwestern Settles With Trump Administration

Northwestern will pay $75 million and walk back a 2024 deal with student protesters, among other concessions, in order to restore hundreds of millions in research funding.

11/28/25USPTO

  USPTO issues revised inventorship guidance for AI-assisted inventions.  The United States Patent and Trademark Office

today published  revised inventorship guidance  for AI-assisted inventions, rescinding its February 2024 guidance on this topic in its entirety.

11/27/25Science, Editorial

  My not-so-favorite year

As 2025 comes to a close, it’s a good time to step back and assess one of the most tumultuous years in the history of American science. The second Trump administration has brought cuts to so many important efforts. Grants aimed at important aspects of science have been abruptly terminated, and the ability of science to welcome talent from all over the world was curtailed. Government attacks on the scientific enterprise have sent a discouraging message to future scientists, raising the specter of a lost generation of scientific talent in the United States. All of this has been compounded by the slashing of programs that allow people who have been traditionally excluded from science to participate more fully

11/26/25Inside Higher Ed

  Universities May Lose State Dept. Partnership Due to Trump’s Anti-DEI Crusade

An unfinalized list shows 38 institutions would be kicked out of a State Department program over alleged diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices, The Guardian reported. The department won’t elaborate beyond saying it’s following the “President’s agenda.”

11/24/25Axios

  Trump orders wide-ranging "Genesis Mission" to boost AI research

President Trump signed an executive order Monday aimed at boosting  AI  research and development, with an eye toward reducing Americans' spiraling energy costs.

See also

Fact Sheet: 

11/24/25Effective December 2, 2025

  Important Notice No. 149: Updates to NSF Research Security Policies

In our ongoing work to ensure NSF-funded projects are free of malign foreign interference and misappropriation, NSF is taking the following steps. These policy updates were developed pursuant to Congressional mandates and Executive Orders and have been refined with extensive stakeholder input

11/24/25Science

  NIH shake-up to grant decision-making sparks concern over political meddling

In a potentially dramatic change to how it chooses what science to fund, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is ending a long-running practice at many of its institutes of establishing, and making public, a threshold peer-review score needed for a grant application’s approval. Instead of many NIH investigator grant decisions being determined by such cutoffs, known as paylines, all 27 institutes and centers must now consider factors such as an institute’s priorities, the applicant’s career stage and existing funding, and even their geographic location.

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