A troubled birthday for the National Science Foundation
Will it make it to 76?
Happy 75th birthday, National Science Foundation! On May 10, 1950, Congress established one of the world’s best value, highest impact, and, frankly, coolest science agencies. The NSF finances federal research in just about anything that’s not health (the National Institutes of Health do that).
It’s been a bit of a rough birthday party. Elon Musk’s “DOGE” has been cutting research funding right and left, including at least 13 grants at MSU at the last count. The director of NSF just resigned as the Trump administration announced plans to dissolve its 37 specialist divisions. Trump’s budget proposes cutting NSF by half. The money that would save? About $5 billion, which isn’t that far from the amount of money that the budget wants to give to SpaceX. And of course they are going especially hard after anything that implies a commitment to equity, diversity, or inclusion, whether it’s the whole NSF equity division or research on environmental justice in Detroit.
https://michiganadvance.com/2025/05/13/a-troubled-birthday-for-the-national-science-foundation/