As many people in the sciences will point out, if Trump officials really wanted to tear up the Biden-era playbook for federal grants — taking out diversity, improving accountability — they already have a tool to do it. Federal grants come with extensive requirements already, which are set by … the federal government.
So what’s stopping the Trump administration from simply remaking the grant process in its own ideological image, rather than gutting research funding overall?
In response to a request for comment on the administration’s rationale, a spokesperson for the OSTP referred DFD to an extensive FAQ on the NSF’s website that states “NSF is continuing to prioritize cutting-edge discovery science and engineering (S&E) research, advancing technology and innovation” and “Awards that are not aligned with program goals or agency priorities have been terminated, including but not limited to those on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), environmental justice, and misinformation/disinformation.”
That sounds a lot like what Kratsios argues in his speech — but doesn’t explain why the administration appears to be more focused on cuts than any particular requirements.
For now, it seems clear that American researchers will have to do more with less in the manner the OSTP leader laid out, regardless of how, or why, the grant-making progress might change under the second Trump administration. The report today from the New York Times on NSF cuts identified a 67 percent overall cut in funding through May 2025 for math, physics and chemistry compared to last year; 57 percent to core engineering disciplines; and a 52 percent cut to biology.
“Because of these significant cuts to NSF, NIH, and perhaps other research funding agencies, there will be irreparable and probably permanent harm to the U.S. science research and innovation system,” ITIF’s Atkinson said.
“There’s really no way to spin that.”
Does anyone honestly believe there is any money left? That the reason they're not giving any money for emergency relief, grants, or anything else is really because of fiscal responsibility and not because whatever they didn't steal, they just flushed down the toilet on their shitty AI project?
What are the odds they were dumb enough to believe it would eventually just start updating itself and doing some amazing things as long as they kept throwing endless amounts of money and data at it, but now they've hit a wall?