Cantwell, researchers lament Trump administrations calls to halve funding for National Science Foundation
May 20—America's globally dominant position in scientific research could be jeopardized by the White House's drastic proposed cuts to the National Science Foundation's funding and staff, Sen. Maria Cantwell warned Monday at a round table with sector experts and engineers, including a WSU researcher focused on the integration of artificial intelligence in agriculture.
President Donald Trump recently called for a 55% cut in funding for the NSF, the independent agency of the federal government responsible for funding research and education into nonmedical sciences. It's a counterpart to the medical research-focused National Institutes for Health, for which Trump has also proposed cutting funding by 40%.
If the cuts are enacted, the NSF's budget would drop from $9 billion to about $4 billion at the start of the next fiscal year in October.
Many researchers were alarmed and argued such cuts could have long-ranging impacts on the country's security, industries and economy.
Based on a 2024 study of the long-term economic benefits of government funded R&D, University of Georgia professor John Drake recently wrote in a column in Forbes that these cuts would ultimately cost the U.S. economy $10 billion annually in unrealized gains.
The White House, meanwhile, has argued the cuts are part of a necessary realignment of government-funded scientific research, accompanied with an announcement earlier this month that the NSF would be majorly restructured and drastically reduce the number of funded programs. Instead, the agency has been directed to refocus its remaining funding to five key research priorities for the president: artificial intelligence, quantum information science, biotechnology, nuclear energy and translational science.
Michael Kratsios, the president's science and technology advisor, told the National Academy of Sciences on Sunday that a surge of research spending in the last 40 years has not seen an accompanying return on investment, echoing the president's call for more focused spending.
"More money has not meant more scientific discovery, and total dollars spent has not been a proxy for scientific impact," Kratsios said. "Spending more money on the wrong things is far worse than spending less money on the right things."
Cantwell and a number of researchers at Monday's roundtable said Kratsios misunderstood the value of the federal government's investments in cutting edge research that often takes decades to reach consumers.
"The Nobel Prize winner for developing the mRNA vaccine (Katalin Karikó) was judged to not be doing any kind of useful research for many years by a lot of her peers, so I don't think any one person can judge the value of research that NSF invests in," said Dr. Dean Chang, chief innovation officer and associate vice president for innovation and entrepreneurship and economic development at the University of Maryland.
Ananth Kalyanaraman is the interim director at Washington State University's School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the director of AgAID, a USDA- and NSF-funded program to research the use of AI in agriculture.
The impact of NSF's cuts to WSU would be far-reaching, Kalyanaraman added, including into the school's research on aquaculture, health, power grids, cyber security and the integration of robotics and AI into several other sectors such as manufacturing and production, as well as his own research into agriculture.
"We are deeply concerned about the nearly $5 billion in cuts to NSF which will directly undercut this vital work and also our nation's ability to remain globally competitive," Kalyanaraman said Monday. "Critically, NSF funding also supports the development of future workforce, and without it, we'll fall behind in our ability to produce the much needed next generation of AI-ready graduates."
Francis Cordova, former director of NSF under both Presidents Trump and Barack Obama, said workforce development has been a vital priority for the agency that is now at risk.
"Industry representatives often tell me that arguably the most important investment NSF makes is in the workforce training of STEM talent," Cordova said. "Arguably the most important part of our economic security, our national security and the relatively high standard of living we enjoy in this country is due to government funding of basic research in the scientific workforce."
While budget cuts to the agency have not yet been approved by Congress, the White House has been shaking up the NSF for months.
The NSF has announced it will lay off an unspecified number of its 1,700-person workforce and slash the number of academic researchers it employs to help guide what research to fund from 368 to 70 by June 9. The agency, along with NIH and the Department of Energy, also attempted earlier this year to cap the percentage of grant funds that could cover "indirect research" costs such as equipment, facilities and administrators, though those decisions have been tied up in legal battles.
Since January, NSF has terminated more than 1,500 grants worth more than a billion dollars, Cantwell claimed Monday.
In April, all NSF grants were frozen, reportedly under the direction of the Department of Government Efficiency, while the Elon Musk-led agency reviewed grants for possible diversity, equity and inclusion-related grants for termination.
"DEI initiatives, in particular, degrade our scientific enterprise," Kratsios told the National Academy of Sciences on Sunday. "DEI represents an existential threat to the real diversity of thought that forms the foundation of the scientific community."
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