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NSF moves to overhaul funding approach in line with White House priorities
The major funder of basic science has not said how its new initiatives will be funded — but staff worry streamlined approach will further squeeze cash for core sciences.
The US National Science Foundation (NSF) is changing how it funds research grants — and how it decides which ones to fund — to better align with White House priorities, according to a letter released on 10 September.
“NSF is taking decisive action to meet this moment, introducing new and ambitious ideas that capitalize on the changes in the scientific ecosystem to advance our core mission,” says the letter. It is signed by Brian Stone, who is standing in as the NSF’s director.
Since its inception in 1950, the NSF, a major funder of basic research, has solicited proposals on topics informed heavily by the scientific community. The letter describes a shift to a “portfolio-based” approach to making grants that combines traditional “investigator-driven inquiry” with “NSF-directed opportunities”. The letter does not say what the opportunities will be, but states that the NSF will specify objectives but “never the method scientists must use” to achieve them.
Staff members at the agency, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, are concerned that the changes will lead to further cuts for work that has long been core to the agency’s mission: discovery-focused research, led by the curiosity of scientists.
When asked for comment on criticisms of the changes, an NSF spokesperson directed Nature to Stone’s letter.
The letter says that solicitations for grant proposals will be “consolidated” and “simplified”. Calls for proposals will also be designed with a greater focus on advancing “a specific aspect of NSF’s mission”, the letter adds.
Central to the NSF’s portfolio-based approach are four research topics that will receive funding from across the agency’s directorates and will also require “cooperation across disciplines and directorates” the letter says. It names four “Frontier Initiatives”: the Future of Intelligence, Frontier of Quantum Phenomena, Advanced Materials and Matter, and Foundations of Biological Design.
These initiatives are a brainchild of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), according to earlier reporting by Nature. The letter does not specify how much will be spent on the frontier initiatives, or how they will be funded, but it says that they will “make full use of the agency’s funding mechanisms … including prizes and challenges”. NSF staff have told Nature that some of the money is likely to come out of the US$1 billion in funding that the agency has been holding in a central account instead of allocating it to grants.
Staff members say that the move to fund the frontier initiatives will probably shrink the agency’s core-science funding and divert large sums to White House priorities. “Ordinarily, there would be optimism that these initiatives could further strengthen the agency’s mission,” one staff member says. “The current administration, however, seems intent on undermining science, so naturally there is scepticism about all of this.”
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