Thursday, January 30, 2025
The National Science Foundation is one of the agencies most affected by the various executive orders issued by the Trump administration. As a critical funder of research in theoretical computer science, and science and engineering more broadly, the NSF has effectively come to a standstill. An NSF employee, speaking anonymously, shared insights on the situation. The following is unofficial, the official position can be found here.
Here are the immediate issues as I understand them. There were a large number of executive orders, and NSF leadership is still trying to determine how they apply to NSF business. As long as that remains unclear, everything is on hold---no awards are moving forward, nor are any awards being declined. NSF staff are not allowed to attend public meetings. I assume that some of this will be resolved in the next few days.
One specific issue is DEI. The executive orders make it quite clear that certain DEI activities are considered to violate current law, and we cannot fund anything that includes activities deemed unlawful. As a result, all active awards are currently being reviewed to determine whether their titles or abstracts contain anything considered objectionable. The process and criteria for determining what is objectionable are still being negotiated between NSF leadership, the Office of Budget and Management, and the White House. Due to the large number of awards that need to be reviewed, this process will involve keyword searches followed by manual post-processing. Once this review is complete, universities will again be able to draw funds from active awards. This is understood to be the most urgent priority, and it should be completed within a matter of days. However, NSF cannot distribute federal funds until it ensures all awards comply with federal law.
The next stage will involve reviewing awards that are currently in the process of being granted, as well as evaluating programs, solicitations, and related matters. NSF leadership will focus on this once the immediate concerns are addressed. My hope is that this will take only a few weeks, but the timeline remains uncertain. I expect that some proposals and programs will face challenges, particularly if they include participation restrictions based on underrepresented categories or explicitly grant admission advantages to certain groups. At the same time, the consensus remains that we need to broaden our talent base and recruit the best candidates wherever they are found. Reporting on recruitment success for underrepresented minorities is still encouraged. However, NSF leadership will need to develop more detailed guidelines, and it will no longer be up to individual program directors to determine compliance based on their judgment.
The executive order with the longest-lasting impact is the hiring freeze. It not only halted ongoing hiring processes but also canceled all of them. As a result, interviews for potential program directors were canceled, and everyone with a pending NSF job application received a notice informing them that the search had been closed. This means NSF will shrink in size. A report on the staffing levels of federal agencies is expected in 90 days, and possibly, NSF will then be allowed to rebuild. However, this will be a slow process, starting from scratch---positions will need to be allocated, job ads written and approved, postings made, applications collected over a month, interviews scheduled, negotiations conducted, offers extended and accepted, and FBI clearances obtained. At the earliest, new hires will enter NSF in Fall 2025. Until then, NSF will be severely understaffed for at least three-quarters of a year. Also, see the "fork" email that every federal employee received.
Posted by Lance Fortnow at 5:44 PM