Sunday, the National Science Foundation announced that his payment system was back online To comply with the order of a judge, five days after the agency funds researchers.
While post-doctoral scholarship holders have been relieved to be able to ask for the checks on which they count to pay the rent, food and credit card bills, some remain concerned about what they consider as contradictory messages that ‘Financing agency has published and worrying about their grants and livelihoods can always be in danger.
The NSF did not immediately answer Stat questions on Sunday.
Many researchers financed by the NSF are paid through universities or other institutions, but others draw their money directly from the agency itself, connecting to a portal and requesting payments. Although some of the directly funded people are required to stick to certain remuneration times, others can technically ask for all the money they were allocated at once, although it is usual for them to withdraw it Little by little, the way in which many workplaces regularly send pay checks.
This portal was frozen after Trump’s January 27 order Stop many payments through the governmentwho was later amended Then canceled.
According to the NSF web page on decrees, which was updated on Sunday, “NSF cannot take measures to delay or stop payment of active awards based solely on real or potential non-compliance with decrees. »»
But last week, when researchers tried to connect to request their pay checks, the website said that “the cash management service (ACM $) is temporarily unavailable from Tuesday January 28, 2025 at 5 pm HNE, while NSF performs a complete price portfolio to ensure compliance with recent decrees… ”
And even once the payment system has returned online, the agency’s website said it would continue to review its allocation portfolio “in the context of recent decrees”.
In court, the state -of -the -art prosecutors argued that the payment break was a violation of the American Constitution, since the funding mandated by the Congress could not be retained by the executive power.
When the researchers had learned the imminent freezing of funding, many had tried to ask for significant sums, in order to be able to pay their bills and continue to work, that the Trump administration has tried to suspend the payments that the federal government had already promised to give outside. But payment requests made Tuesday were canceled.
The NSF website has declared that it reserves the right to “take measures for reasons not related to compliance with decrees, such as violations of the law, regulations or current conditions of the NSF subsidy” .
In the meantime, the NSF said there may be delays in paying payments in the next two days, given the high volume of requests provided.