- There have been very large scale personnel cuts across HHS, FDA, CDC, NIH - see here. This includes groups like the people who monitor lead in drinking water.
- There is reporting about the upcoming presidential budget requests about NASA and NOAA. The requested cuts are very deep. To quote Eric Berger's article linked above, for the science part of NASA, "Among the proposals were: A two-thirds cut to astrophysics, down to $487 million; a greater than two-thirds cut to heliophysics, down to $455 million; a greater than 50 percent cut to Earth science, down to $1.033 billion; and a 30 percent cut to Planetary science, down to $1.929 billion." The proposed cuts to NOAA are similarly deep, seeking to end climate study in the agency, as Science puts it. The full presidential budget request, including NSF, DOE, NIST, etc. is still to come. Remember, Congress in the past has often essentially ignored presidential budget requests. It is unclear if the will exists to do so now.
- Speaking of NSF, the graduate research fellowship program award announcements for this year came out this past week. The agency awarded slightly under half as many of these prestigious 3-year fellowships as in each of the last 15 years. I can only presume that this is because the agency is deeply concerned about its budgets for the next couple of fiscal years.
- Grants are being frozen at several top private universities - these include Columbia (new cancellations), the University of Pennsylvania (here), Harvard (here), Northwestern and Cornell (here), and Princeton (here). There are various law suits filed about all of these. Princeton and Harvard have been borrowing money (issuing bonds) to partly deal with the disruption as litigation continues. The president of Princeton has been more vocal than many about this.
- There has been a surge in visa revocations and unannounced student status changes in SEVIS for international students in the US. To say that this is unsettling is an enormous understatement. See here for a limited discussion. There seems to be deep reluctance for universities to speak out about this, presumably from the worry that saying the wrong thing will end up placing their international students and scholars at greater exposure.
- On Friday evening, the US Department of Energy put out a "policy flash", stating that indirect cost rates on its grants would be cut immediately to 15%. This sounds familiar. Legal challenges are undoubtedly beginning.
- Added bonus: According to the Washington Post, DOGE (whatever they say they are this week) is now in control of grants.gov, the website that posts funding opportunities. As the article says, "Now the responsibility of posting these grant opportunities is poised to rest with DOGE — and if its employees delay those postings or stop them altogether, 'it could effectively shut down federal-grant making,' said one federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal operations."
None of this is good news for the future of science and engineering research in the US. If you are a US voter and you think that university-based research is important, I encourage you to contact your legislators and make your opinions heard.
(As I have put in my profile, what I write here are my personal opinions; I am not in any way speaking for my employer. That should be obvious, but it never hurts to state it explicitly.)
Update: NSF has "disestablished" the advisory committees associated with its directorates (except the recently created TIP directorate). Coverage here in Science. This is not good, and I worry that it bodes ill for large cutbacks.
Update 4/18: NSF is now terminating active grants, having "updated" their "priorities".
11 comments:
Germany used to have the must prestigious universities in the world until the 1920s, 20 years later that wasn't true anymore. The same thing is happening to the US now. Either Europe or China have to step up research spending and welcome all the scientists that are going to escape american nazism.
Well,.Harvard is pushing back.
I can confirm that multiple schools have gotten notice from DOE of "conditional termination" on May 15 if they won't accept a 15% overhead rate. It will be up to the schools to decide whether to go that route, but there's a lot riding on the lawsuits. If there's no injunction, then schools may have to decide whether to give up active grants or set a precedent of accepting 15% overhead. Neither is a good option.
It is indeed unfortunate that DOGE is destroying the support for education and research! Thanks for speaking out and sharing your views.
I am glad that Harvard stood firm and all public and private Universities can and should do the same.
Congress is responsible for the budgets not the President who is trying to be a symbol of authoritarianism!
DOGE is trying to prevent an economic crisis like Germany experienced in the 1920s. Germany had too much debt and printed money to pay it. That is what destroyed German science. DOGE is trying to prevent the US from having a similar debt crisis. The US cannot continue to run deficits like we have been running the last few years. The US deficit/GDP needs to get to 3% to be sustainable. It is running now over 6%. DOGE is cutting everywhere they can including DOD. Do you have better ideas of how to get to 3%?
German hyperinflation led to the Nazis which led to German science disintegrating when they threw out the Jews. Debt didn't make Jews flee Germany. Yes, I have better ideas of how to get to 3%, and they don't involve destroying the NSF, NASA, NOAA, and the NIH.
That was my point. Debt led to German hyperinflation which led to everything else you mentioned. We are trying to prevent that from happening in the US.
I thought it was the printing of money that caused that, rather than as now borrowing (and hence paying of interest).
Not saying all is good now but it's not the same.
Exactly. Countries like Germany printed money to pay off the debt. The US would never default on its debt. It would do the same and print money to pay it back with devalued currency. Economists generally agree that 3% deficits to GDP are sustainable. 6-7% like we are currently running is not. It is also becomes a bigger problem when the interest rate on the debt rises as it has now. The US currently spends as much on debt interest payments as they do on defense and that number is growing. You don't want a big chunk of your revenue spent servicing your debt. This is what DOGE is desperately trying to prevent. Many engineers and science types are on the DOGE team. I don't think their goal is to gut science in this country but rather to reform it. Ray Dalio, an expert on these economic matters, calculates that the US has about 3 years to fix the problem or face a debt crisis.
“I don’t think their goal is to gut science in this country but rather to reform it.”
You are either lying or incredibly naive.
NSF halts grant awards while staff do second review
https://www.science.org/content/article/nsf-halts-grant-awards-while-staff-do-second-review
This admin is own goal after own goal.
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