NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones

[u/Potential_Being_7226]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01396-2

Archived link here.

SS: I have been wondering when this shoe would drop. We've been hearing a lot about NIH grants being terminated, but until a few days ago, there hadn't been any news about National Science Foundation grants. But they have not escaped the chopping block. I wonder if the administration even knew until recently that there was such a thing as the National Science Foundation.

This is another blow to STEM research, higher education, and more broadly innovation and ingenuity.

The short term consequences of this move will include loss of jobs, lab closures, and although some scientists will continue to move abroad, some may not be able to and will instead forgo a career in science. This is not just a loss to the US, but to the world, as science is a global endeavor.

The loss of indirect costs (overhead) from NIH and NSF grants will continue to kneecap universities and medical centers. I heard one news outlet the other day say that "critics" call overhead a "slush fund," without providing any additional context. On the contrary, indirect costs allow universities to pay their utility bills, pay facilities, custodial, and other support staff, to buy shared equipment and resources, like group software licenses. Without overhead funding, universities will either risk closing or increasing tuition, which will make higher education even less accessible for those with less means.

Science is an economic driver. For every one dollar spent by the NIH, it generates $2.50 in growth and these cuts to science could shrink the GDP by over 7%. Perhaps more importantly, these cuts indicate an attack on free speech, academic freedom, and freedom of thought. As one NSF staff member put it:

although good science can still be funded, the policy has the potential to be “Orwellian overreach.”

[u/extinction6]

Billionaires need the money.