Many scientists fear that the NSF cuts will slow or stall the progress of basic research, including in computer science, which means that America loses its competitive advantage.
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The National Science Foundation dismissed 168 employees on Tuesday. According to an NSF spokesperson, layoffs aim to guarantee compliance with President Trump’s decree aimed at reducing federal workforce in the name of efficiency.
Before layoffs, around 1,700 employees worked at NSF, managing their federal budget of $ 9 billion which finances research on everything, Astrophysics with civil engineering. The staff were called to an emergency meeting at 10 a.m., held on Zoom and in person, where Micah Cheatham, the director of management of the NSF, had told him that they would have been dismissed by the end of the day, without compensation. According to present sources, the director of the NSF, Sethuraman Panchanathan, who ordered the layoffs, did not attend the meeting.
“The dismissal of talented people, including scientists, who have already invested a year or two with the agency is a waste of resources,” explains Neal Lane, who was director of the NSF from 1993 to 1998. ” -Unis need more scientists, engineers and other technical talents.
NPR spoke with more than half a dozen NSF employees – some who remain at the agency and some who have been dismissed. NPR has granted them anonymity because they all say that they fear reprisals for having spoken publicly, either losing their current job if they are employed or for those who have dropped, fearing that their remaining colleagues can be targeted. Many dismissed people were program agents, who manage research programs by assessing subsidies, bringing together research panels and making decisions concerning the subsidies to be financed.
“All this work is not going to be done,” said a licensed consultant who worked to expand the STEM workforce. “We need people trained in these emerging AI and semiconductor technologies. country, which is exactly what I thought that the government did not want to do. “”
The layoffs have targeted probationary employees, who have fewer employment protections than permanent employees, but must always be dismissed for the cause. Some members of probationary staff are new in the agency, while others have recently promoted positions. In addition, all “intermittent experts” – temporary employees hired by the desire often for expertise in specific matters – have been terminated.
In the dismissal notices, probation employees have been informed: “The agency finds, according to your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your new job at the agency would be in the public interest.” But several of the licensed employees who spoke at NPR say they have exemplary files, including the prices of the director. “I will be curious to see how the courts manage the flagrant lie of performance,” said a licensed program director.
Several NSF licensed employees who spoke at NPR were permanent hiring, but reclassified in probationary despite their terms of one year probation period. They declared that reclassification had occurred in January, without explanation, in the direction of the Office for the Management of the Staff of the White House.
“Everyone is trying to be the best goalkeepers of tax money that we can be”
A program officer licensed in the geosciences resigned from a job of titular teachers after obtaining an official opinion that they had been permanently hired by NSF. “My official documents in the system reflect that I am permanent, I have not received any new document, I had no official communication from the NSF which told me the opposite,” said the officer.
This officer left the employment of the employment of a titular position “to give back to my country and to the scientific community … certainly not (for) the salary or the workload,” they said. “These are some of the people who work the harshest I have ever met, and everyone is trying to be the best tax guards we can be.”
An NPR licensed employee spoke to ensure that existing subsidies really did what the researchers decided to do. “Without people like me, there is no one to supervise this external assessment or this responsibility.”
With less staff, exams and grant awards will slow down or trigger, employees said at NPR. In the end, this will delay new discoveries that could improve the lives of people or the understanding of scientists from the natural world.
“These arbitrary layoffs and the failure of leadership have an impact directly on the agency’s ability to assess and finance good sciences,” explains Mary Feeney, researcher in public policy at Arizona State University. “(IT) is demoralizing for those who remain at the NSF and will negatively affect the government’s ability to attract talent in the public service in the future.”
The shots come in the middle of a period of tumult to the research agency under the new administration. At the end of January, NSF Has any revision of subsidies for several weeks and Gel fund For existing subsidies, while they worked to assess how their subsidies conforms to Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion.
Staff have also been informed that billions could be reduced by the budget and that more shots could arrive in the coming months. “It’s not good,” said an NSF employee. “I don’t know what NSF is going to be now, but it’s not more effective. It’s just a mess.”