NSF terminates over 1,000 grants in 2 weeks

The US National Science Foundation has terminated 1,042 active grants over the past 2 weeks, according to a list provided to C&EN by an internal NSF source, who insisted on anonymity out of fear of retribution. The agency terminated around 400 awards on April 18; the remainder were canceled on April 25.

No grants associated with the foundation’s chemistry division have been affected so far, but several chemistry education researchers have lost access to their funding. Nature reported on May 1 that the NSF has also paused funding new grants and directed staff to screen proposals for certain topics and activities.

Noam Ross, executive director of the research sharing nonprofit rOpenSci , has been compiling crowdsourced data to track canceled NSF awards. A lot of what has been targeted to this point is research focused on improving science education and training programs for early-career researchers, he says.

“It’s things that the administration might call DEI,” Ross says, referring to diversity, equity, and inclusion. “But it's really a matter of them cutting off opportunities for a broader set of scientists.”

More termination notices are expected to go out over the next few weeks, the NSF employee says. The next round could happen as soon as today.

The notices that have been sent, which C&EN has reviewed, state that the “termination of certain awards is necessary because they’re not in alignment with current NSF priorities.” The funding agency’s website clarifies that the awards impacted include those that “rely on DEI frameworks” or focus on misinformation and disinformation.

Cassandra Eichner, an NSF spokesperson, tells C&EN in an emailed statement that the agency’s priorities, which were updated around the time of the April 18 terminations, are created in accordance with administrative priorities and statutory directives.

Dueling guidance

But legal experts say that when it comes to the NSF, the priorities and directives are in conflict.

In January, the Donald J. Trump administration issued an executive order to eliminate government programs focused on DEI. Yet in an email, the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology tells C&EN that there are “many broadening participation programs that are explicitly authorized” and “countless lines scattered across other NSF statutes directing the agency to conduct outreach to disadvantaged populations.”

The Republican members of the House committee did not respond to C&EN’s request for comment.

The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act, for example, directs the NSF to review grants based on their broader impacts, which include whether a proposal helps expand “the participation of women and minorities” in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act also requires science agencies to improve the recruitment, retention, and advancement of historically underrepresented groups in STEM.

In the event of clashing guidance between the legislative and executive branches, “laws supersede [executive] orders,” says one legal expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid potential backlash. “That is a law that has to be followed, and the executive orders can’t change that by themselves.”

Former NSF director Sethuraman Panchanathan says in a statement on the NSF website that the agency “will continue to support research with the goal of understanding or addressing participation in STEM, in accordance with all applicable statutes and mandates, with the core goal of creating opportunities for all Americans.”

Panchanathan resigned as director on April 25.

The agency also states on its website that it will continue to operate legally mandated programs, but proposals submitted to these programs “must not directly or indirectly preference or exclude any Americans on the basis of protected characteristics.”

According to the legal expert, “that seems pretty inconsistent with the broader impacts criterion” as defined in the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act and other legislation.

Beyond the NSF’s congressional mandates, Zoë Beckerman, a public health researcher at George Washington University, sees red flags in how the agency is issuing these terminations. She practiced federal grants law for a decade before moving into academia.

Beckerman says federal funding agencies normally provide grantees the opportunity to correct any issues or deficiencies before terminating an award. Then, if an agency still decides to terminate the grant, it typically gives the principal investigator (PI) the opportunity to dispute the decision through an internal appeal process.

With the recent NSF grant terminations, PIs were told that the agency’s decision was final and “not subject to appeal,” even though the agency’s own policies outline procedures for appealing.

Appeals and lawsuits

Some universities are appealing anyway. The termination letter “does say we can't appeal, but we all know that that's not what the rules are,” says Julie Libarkin, a geocognition researcher at Michigan State University. Her institution gave her 2 weeks to write a letter disputing her grant cancellation, which supported postdoctoral STEM education researchers working with Indigenous tribes.

Researchers also have the option of challenging the terminations in court, although no lawsuits have yet been filed. The researchers who lost their NSF funding “would have very good cases,” Beckerman says. She points to recent lawsuits filed against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) after it began terminating grants. The NIH has since restored some of the canceled grants.

But Beckerman also acknowledges the burden a lawsuit would put on researchers, especially at a time when their universities are being bombarded by multiple challenges from the administration. As an institution, she says, “you’ve got to figure out, ‘Where's the best bang for my buck? What am I going to go after in terms of fighting back?’ ”

Some institutions are not offering their researchers much support. Guizella Rocabado, a chemistry education researcher at Southern Utah University, had a grant canceled that would have funded a chemistry education conference focused on more equitable and inclusive research and teaching practices.

“The only thing that my university has said is, ‘Sorry this happened to you,’ ” Rocabado says. But given the threat of massive budget cuts to universities in her state, she adds, “I don’t think I was expecting anything different.”