Back-doors to funding freezes: Why the U.S. government doesn’t want to listen to the executive branch’s orders
The budget office froze all grants and loans one week after Trump took office in order to review government spending to make sure it was in line with the executive orders. Chaos erupted as agencies, including the NIH and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) — both major funders of basic science — halted grant payments, cancelled review panels for research-grant funding and paused communications. There is continued confusion even after a federal judge temporarily blocked the order.
The review panels are not going to be called off because the agency hasn’t been allowed to take a key procedural step. This has caused an indefinite lapse in funding and left scientists facing difficult decisions about the future of their research programmes.
Some legal scholars say that this ‘back-door’ approach to freezing funding is illegal. That’s because the US Constitution gives Congress, not the president or his team, the power to appropriate funds, says David Super, an administrative-law specialist at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington DC. He says that blocking meetings that are legally required to make payments is no different than refusing to sign contracts or issue cheques.
What have scientists done about science? The effects of Trump’s e-mail on research-grant decisions, scientific education, and scientific research funding
Applications for research-grants are considered by two different panels in order to get approval. A group of independent scientists come together to score applications in the study section. A meeting of the agency’s advisory council is a separate body of scientists and advisers who meet to check an application before a funding decision is made.
According to the e-mail, the Trump administration will, in future, require that these notices be posted at least 35 days before grant-review meetings, instead of the standard 15 in effect previously. If the notices were permitted from today, the earliest date that a new meeting can be scheduled is 28 March.
Almost immediately after being sworn in as president on 20 January, Trump put his signature to piles of executive orders cancelling or freezing tens of billions of dollars in funding for research and international assistance, and putting the seal on thousands of lay-offs. Orwellian restrictions have been placed on research, including bans on studies that mention particular words relating to sex and gender, race, disability and other protected characteristics.
“As we get more backed up, there will reach a point where it’ll be impossible to do peer review in time for the [second] council meeting date,” says an NIH scientific review officer, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
Nature provides a forum for the reporting and discussion of news and issues concerning science, and serves scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science. For much of our 155-year history, the United States has been the global leader in research, including in its provision of funding for education and training in science, to the great advantage of itself and the wider world. The new administration seems to be inclined to give up the change now under way. We at Nature denounce this assault on science. And we encourage the global research community, wherever they can, to voice their opposition.
Some of those orders had been anticipated, including pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris agreement to rein in global climate emissions and terminating the nation’s membership of the World Health Organization. Others had surprising effects on the scientific community.
These attacks on people’s rights are unacceptable. They will halt, if not reverse, decades of progress in scientific research. Research shows that disaggregated data is needed to achieve the goals. Sex and gender are included in study design in order to improve science and medicine.
Trump signed another executive order banning what he called illegal and immoral discrimination programs. Government workers were warned in an e-mail that if they didn’t report their colleagues who were disobeying the DEI orders, they would face consequences. To many scientists’ dismay, agencies began terminating DEI programmes, including environmental-justice efforts, which are programmes aimed at protecting low-income communities vulnerable to pollution and climate change. There were some websites that scrubbed DEI mentions from their websites. In one of Trump’s orders he ordered the investigation of foundations, non-profit organizations, and other private entities not in compliance.
A university scientist who asked not to be named because of their research funding said that principal investigators who lead research teams are suffering because of the environment. They said that everything is on the person to manage grants and their team, along with the fear of losing funding for their work. “It’s completely chaotic; I’m losing sleep.”
Trump’s unprecedented directives landed as his partnership with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has flourished. The pair are trying to cut federal spending and eliminate agencies which funds global disease research, prevention and care.
“I can’t even convey how haphazard and cruel the layoffs are,” says an NIH researcher who lost members of their laboratory to the job cuts and requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak with the press. E-mails notifying workers that they were being let go reportedly gave a blanket reason of poor performance for the termination — even to those whose performance was rated ‘exceptional’ by their supervisors. The researcher says that they took some of the best people in the government and laid them off.
How, then, should those of us who are part of the global enterprise of education, health, science and engineering respond? To support researchers and to defend their ability to work and study without fear for their jobs is the priority that needs to be taken care of. The researchers at universities and other research organizations have more freedom and must support affected colleagues if they want to speak up.
There are differences of opinion between researchers in all scientific fields. Discussion and further study can help reach a shared understanding. It isn’t a solution to shut down scholarship.
Federal agencies and institutions are in bad shape. Thousands of researchers are stuck in limbo while they wait for a thaw on a funding freeze. Millions of US grant recipients have been abandoned around the world.
A 90-day halt on funding from the US Agency for International Development is leading to the loss of contraceptive care for one million women around the world. In 2023, the United States disbursed $72 billion in international assistance, some 60% of which was provided through USAID.
Trump has also cancelled US federal funding for international climate-change projects, which totalled some US$11 billion in 2024, amounting to around 10% of annual global public climate finance. With his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord, this is a huge blow to tackling climate change and will delay efforts to boost finance for the countries most affected by global warming.
On the international front, the decision to withdraw from or drastically scale back long-standing commitments will have severe consequences. The United States is often the largest contributor to global initiatives directly linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world’s plan to end poverty and achieve environmental sustainability. The country also provides around one-fifth of the core budget for the World Health Organization (WHO), which Trump has already notified of his intent to leave. Although the United States will not formally depart until next year, the WHO’s more than 8,000 staff members have already been told by director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to put all but essential travel on hold.
Individuals and organizations are challenging some of the Trump administration’s actions in the courts, and it might be that the White House is forced to moderate or reverse some of its decisions. There is a desire to reduce, if not eliminate, independent, science-based evidence and expert advice and also a disregard for international agreements, as shown by the direction of travel.
The policy developments “cast a shadow across future planning”, especially for international collaborations involving interdisciplinary research, says Scott, whose grant looks at how the brain of the zebrafish (Danio rerio) processes visual and auditory information. He says that the policy of funding researchers overseas by theNIH is very generous and outward looking. “The uncertainty that arises for international researchers is whether the NIH will consider continuing to send money overseas.”
On its website, the NIH lists 811 grants to international teams in more than 60 countries, together worth more than $340 million. The nations with the most awards are South Africa, Canada and the United Kingdom. A few thousand dollars to $7 million are the grant sizes.