The National Science Foundation ends hundreds of Active Research Awards

Casey Fiesler, professor of information science at the University of Colorado Boulder, learned on Friday evening that one of the three grants that she had awarded the National Science Foundation was terminated.

“It was a total surprise,” said Dr. Fiesler. “This is the one I thought was totally safe.”

The scholarship supported Dr. Fiesler's research on the establishment of AI alphabetization. She did not receive an official explanation for why the scholarship was terminated more than a year before its planned end. Dr. However, Fiesler speculated that the abstract of the award had something to do with the word “misinformation”.

Dr. Fiesler was not alone. From Monday, the National Science Foundation had canceled more than 400 active awards, according to a list of the New York Times. The decision occurs after months of examining the agency, including a report by Senator Ted Cruz, Republicans of Texas, in October and February in February in February an internal review of the awards that contains words in connection with diversity, justice and inclusion or dei

In January, the Trump administration tried to freeze grant payments for existing awards at the NSF. The arrangement also announced that the agency could not end active awards in order to comply with President Trump's executive commands, an end to the “illegal and immoral discrimination programs” according to the premise of Dei throughout the federal government.

In a statement on Friday, the NSF stated that its cancellations had not violated the temporary injunction. When the Times was asked to clarify the legality of the cancellations of the scholarships, the agency rejected a statement.

The National Science Foundation, founded in 1950, finances a large part of the scientific research that takes place in the United States, ranging from astronomy and quantum computers to microbiology and education in scientific technology, engineering and mathematics or MINT.

In the 2024 financial year, the agency had a budget of 9 billion US dollars. But there was worry about how much of this budget would survive under the Trump administration.

Last Wednesday, the magazine Science reported that all new agency's new research grants were frozen, as organized by the Ministry of Government Efficiency or Doge. The NSF rejected it to confirm the freezing of new awards or what role, if at all, had dog in the action.

The NSF continued on Friday and canceled grants for ongoing research. In an explanation, the agency announced that they end awards that did not match their priorities, including, but not limited to awards that focus on DEI as well as misinformation and disinformation.

The agency also announced changes to the evaluation of the potential advantages of research. Before that, the agency took into account how well projects could bring under -represented groups to science, including women, minorities and people with disabilities.

In her explanation on Friday, the agency announced that it had shifted its priorities. Activities in connection with broader effects have to “create opportunities for all Americans everywhere,” said the agency and added that the efforts should not be “prefer some groups at the expense of others”.

In addition, the agency said that it would no longer prioritize financing research on misinformation that “violate the constitutionally protected language rights of American citizens” and the scholarships could cancel to “ensure that taxpayers are spent in the most efficient way.”

A spokesman for the NSF refused to comment on the number of awards or any role in the cancellations. In a post on X on Friday, DOG praised the agency for the cancellation of 402 “wasteful” grants, which corresponds to savings of $ 233 million.

According to a program director of the NSF, which asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, most of the previously canceled awards from the agency departments come about learning and justice for excellent performance in the STEM.

More than 100 of the canceled awards were put together by Noam Ross, Executive Director of a non -profit organization called Ropensci, and Scott Delaney, an epidemiologist at Harvard University. The database reflects its constantly growing list of awards that are canceled by the National Institutes of Health that have been going on since January.

According to Dr. Ross were mentioned many of the awards submitted in the new database in the list underneath by Senator Cruz, in which 3,483 “questionable projects” were identified, which were financed by the NSF and which the investigators referred to as the promotion of Dei, or what they described as “Advanced Neo-Marxist Class Warfare Propaganda”.

Democrats of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology in the House of Representatives published a refutation of the Senator Cruz October report last week, and found several shortcomings, including the misinterpretation of scientific terms such as “biological diversity” that are related to Dei

“Many people portray this as a war against the elite in university formation,” said Dr. Ross from Ropensci on the cancellations of the scholarships. But “so much of what is taken away are the programs that science look more like America.”

Ember McCoy, doctoral student at the University of Michigan, who studies the politics of air pollution, found on Monday that her NSF scholarship was canceled. She received no official reason for the cancellation. But she felt that it would come, she said because in the United States there are places with the highest air pollution rates with low incomes and color communities.

Ms. McCoy planned to use the rest of her scholarship to pay community partners in the southwest of Detroit, with whom she works to do research. She also hoped to use the means to organize a public presentation about her research for the community that she studies.

Terrell Morton, a MINT researcher for educational researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago, learned about his scholarships on Friday afternoon.

Dr. Morton was financed by the NSF to examine the experiences of black students in the MINT and how these experiences influence the decisions, to stay in the field or to leave the field. Two of his grants were identified in the October report by Senator Cruz, said Dr. Morton, so he was not surprised when they were canceled. What was unexpected, he said, received the official announcement late on Good Friday.

Critics of the cancellations say that they contradict the existing laws.

“The congress has passed laws according to which the NSF researched on certain topics and in a certain way,” said Dr. Delaney, who was a lawyer, before he became an epidemiologist.

This could include the America Competition Act of reauthorization, which was passed into the law in 2010 and obliges the agency to support activities that expand the participation of women and people from other underrepresented groups in MINT.

In general, the agency offers scientists the opportunity to make their decisions about financing. However, the researchers have been informed that the decision to cancel their grants was final and is not subject to an appeal.

Scientists expressed fear of growing research disorders and the damage that it could mean for both the academy and the public as a whole.

“It is shocking to see that the government is doing this,” said Jon Freeman, a psychologist at Columbia University, whose grant ended in studying facial perception. “The American leadership in science and technology drives to China and other countries. I think it will take at least 10 years for American scientific and biomedical research to be recovered.”