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Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.
The National Science Foundation has cancelled hundreds of grants to researchers working on projects related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as misinformation and disinformation.
In a statement posted on its website, NSF director Sethuraman Panchanathan wrote that the agency’s efforts to promote the progress of science should not preference some people, such as women or those from underrepresented groups, over others.
Related
• NSF starts to kill grants that violate Trump’s war on diversity efforts
• National Science Foundation cancels research grants related to misinformation and disinformation
• Get Involved: AGU Science Policy Action Center
“Research projects with more narrow impact limited to subgroups of people based on protected class or characteristics do not effectuate NSF priorities,” he wrote. “Awards that are not aligned with NSF’s priorities have been terminated, including but not limited to those on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and misinformation/disinformation.”
A post on the Department of Government Efficiency’s X account said NSF had cancelled 402 grants, worth $233 million.
Great work by @NSF canceling 402 wasteful DEI grants ($233M in savings), including $1M for “Antiracist Teacher Leadership for Statewide Transformation”.
See the NSF update below. Grant awards will be based on merit, competition, equal opportunity, and excellence. https://t.co/Zptp92uBkm
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE)
April 19, 2025
Funding was cancelled for a range of projects including one studying efforts to limit the spread of inaccurate information online and another using community-based science to research the effects of extreme heat in racially and ethnically diverse communities.
I got an email yesterday afternoon that my NSF SPRF Postdoctoral Fellowship was terminated. My grant focused on testing interventions to address online misinformation and I was 8 months into a two year appointment.
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Maddy Jalbert (@maddyjalbert.bsky.social) 2025-04-19T16:43:38.391Z
The announcement follows a 21 January executive order from President Trump that ordered all executive departments and agencies to terminate all “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) or “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA).”
I’m so angry & heart broken. My NSF CAREER grant was stolen today; dream project supporting science teachers/students as climate justice action researchers, tackling urban heat. Truly transformative, the culmination of my life’s work, we won’t stop, not in this climate crisis. Gonna fight like hell!
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Tammie Visintainer (@proftv.bsky.social) 2025-04-19T05:37:10.060Z
The NSF statement also cited President Trump’s 20 January executive order (one of 26 signed on his first day in office): Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship. “Under the guise of combatting ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation,’ the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens,” the order read.
Noam Ross, a computational researcher and the director of rOpenSci, and Scott Delaney, an epidemiologist at Harvard, created an Airtable form in which researchers can report their grant cancellations.
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