The Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, is managed by a consortium of universities and the National Science Foundation.
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Visionsofamerica / Joe Sohm / Getty Images / Photodisc
Julia Van etten cannot suddenly pay her bills this week.
The biologist of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution won a postdoctoral research subsidy of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study how DNA sharing between microbes shapes their evolution. The subsidy supports its research – and its livelihoods.
But the NSF froze payments to all existing subsidies on Tuesday. This means that Van Etten, and the hundreds of other scientists with his type of grant, could not withdraw the money they need for food and rent, or their research.
“Scientists at this career stage are not well paid, so we all live a little pay check for the pay check,” she said. “I will not be able to pay my bills this month if they don’t solve this soon.”
NSF freeze includes both funding subsidies that have already been awarded, as well as Examine new applications to finance future research.
The frost remains despite the white house Cancel your service note Shouting at a break in all federal subsidy expenses on Wednesday after an order of the court challenged it. The reason why the NSF continued with a frost seems to be Trump’s orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and how they conflict with the mandate of the Congress NSF.
“All NSF beneficiaries must comply with these decrees by ceasing all non -compliant grant and allocation activities,” said NSF statement. “In particular, this can include … a grant activity that uses or promotes the use of principles and executives and executives of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.”
This presents a huge challenge to the NSF. The Chips and Science Act of 2022 A Several provisions linked to the NSF which explicitly requires it to expand participation in science, and previous laws governing the foundation has a similar language. This means that in addition to weighing the intellectual merit of proposals, the NSF must examine how the research it will finance “the participation of women and individuals of under -represented groups” in science – something studies The show leads to more productive science.
The Trump administration now says that NSF cannot do what Congress requires it. For the moment, NSF seems to comply. Science reported on Thursday that the agency searched billions of dollars of its subsidies already rewarded In search of subjects related to Deia. The funding will probably not resume before this billions of dollars in grants are completed.
“It’s just a massive waste of resources,” said Mary FeeneyResearcher in public policy at Arizona State University. “People are not doing their job. They have canceled all these scientific panels; stopping the work of agencies at the moment will have real consequences.”
Beyond the frost, she worries about the broader implications of the first movements of the Trump administration.
“The idea that the president would have a kind of committee or set of people who would take determinations on funding decisions threaten the entire scientific business,” she said. “The expansion of participation is to make sure that when you use dollars of taxpayers to invest in science, you draw the best party from public and social results.”
Funding Fallout Funding
Most federal subsidies, NSF or other agencies such as the National Institutes of Health or the Environmental Protection Agency, do not go directly to individual researchers like Van etten. Instead, they go to the university or the institution of the subsidy recipient, which then spends the funds.
Universities rushed to understand their legal exposure to new executive actions, explains Feeney. It would be very unusual for a funding agency like NSF to recover money from a university that has already been given, she said. But in the future, “they are trying to understand” for what can I pay and what I can’t. “
In the meantime, universities have published a wide range of declarations advising researchers on what to do.
Many, including University of Stanford and the University of Texas in AustinTell their research community to continue as usual unless they obtain explicit orders to stop the work of a federal agency. Some adopt a more cautious approach, including the University of Chicago, which asked its staff on Tuesday to suspend all non-permanent expenses for federal subsidies, including research supplies and travel, while assessing its Legal exposure.
This position creates a certain confusion between the staff. Peter Savage is an immunologist at the University of Chicago. His laboratory maintains hundreds of mice for experiences to help develop therapies against cancer, which he still plans to feed at the moment.
But, he says, “if there is a significant delay or delay in funding, we must essentially have many of our mice and contract our colony to the smallest possible quantity. It is the equivalent of a A farmer who loses a harvest for the season together, “he said, and would take months to rebuild these mice.
All the confusion around frost has many scientists fearing not to see subsidies that they have already granted. Carrie McDonough is an environmental chemist in Carnegie Mellon. She obtained an EPA grant to develop faster ways to create sustainable environmental chemicals. This should send funds in March to help support a graduate student, she said. “Now I don’t know if or when it happens.”
Van Etten is concerned about the impact that a prolonged break could have on his research and research more widely. “It will not stop science, but it stops American science,” she said. “My work in biology of the genome moves at a very fast pace, and if my work is delayed for months, someone in another country will publish something very similar.”