- A court decision regarding who has the authority to fire probationary federal workers has led to the NSF hiring back 84 of the employees that it had previously dismissed, at least for now. The Office of Personnel Management is still altering their wording on this.
- There is likely some kind of continuing resolution in the offing in Congress, as the current funding stopgap expires on March 14. If a CR passes that extends to the rest of the fiscal year (Sept 30), that would stave off any big cuts until next FY's budget.
- At the same time, a number of NSF-funded research experience for undergraduate programs are being cancelled for this year. This is very unfortunate, as REU programs are many undergrads' first exposure to real research, while also being a critical mechanism for students at non-research-heavy institutions to get research experience.
- The concerns about next year's funding are real. As I've written before, cuts and programmatic changes have been proposed by past presidents (including this one in his first term), but historically Congressional appropriators have tended not to follow those. It seems very likely that the White House's budget proposal will be very bleak for science. The big question is the degree to which Congress will ignore that.
- In addition to the budget, agencies (including NSF) have been ordered to prepare plans for reductions in force - staffing cuts - with deadlines to prepare those plans by 13 March and another set of plans by 14 April.
- Because of all this, a number of universities are cutting back on doctoral program admissions (either in specific departments or more broadly). My sense is that universities with very large components of NIH funding thanks to medical schools are being particularly cautious. Schools are being careful because many places guarantee some amount of support for at least several years, and it's difficult for them to be full-speed-ahead given uncertainties in federal sponsor budgets, possible endowment taxes, possible revisions to indirect cost policies, etc.
Enormous uncertainty remains in the wake of all of this activity, and this period of comparative quiet before the staffing plans and CR are due is an eerie calm. (Reminds me of the line from here, about how it can be unsettling when a day goes by and you don't hear anything about the horse loose in the hospital.)
In other news, there is a national Stand Up for Science set of rallies tomorrow. Hopefully the net impact of this will be positive. The public and our legislators need to understand that support for basic science is not a partisan issue and has been the underpinning of enormous economic and technological progress.
Update: My very brief remarks at the Stand Up for Science event at Rice today:
Hello everyone –
Thanks for turning out for this important event.
Science research has shaped the world we know. Our understanding of the universe (physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and all the engineering disciplines that have come from those foundations) is one of humanity’s great intellectual achievements. We know a lot, and we know enough to know that we still have much more to learn.
One of the great things about basic science is that you never know where it can lead. Basic research into heat-tolerant bacteria gave us the polymerase chain reaction technique, which led to the mapping of genomes, enormous advances in biology and medicine, and a lot of unrealistic scenes in TV police procedurals. Basic research into semiconductors gave us the light emitting diode, which has transformed lighting around the world and given us the laser pointer, the blue ray, and those annoying programmable holiday lights you see all the time.
Particularly since WWII, science research has been supported by the US government, with the idea that while industry is good at many things, there is a need for public support of research that does not have a short-term profit motive.
Thanks to several agencies (the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and others), the result has led to enormous progress, and great economic and societal benefit to the country and the world.
We need to remind everyone – the general person on the street and the politicians in Austin and Washington – that science research and education is vital for our future. Science is not partisan, and good science can and should inform policy making. We face many challenges, and continued support for science and engineering research is essential to our future success.
Thanks again for turning out, and let’s keep reminding everyone that supporting science is incredibly important for all of us.
