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Full screen of NSF’s most famous project: McMurdo station in Antarctica. It is the largest research base found at the South Pole. File image. Photo: NSF via AP/TT
The new Trump era shakes about the research world as well. The NSF research authority is threatened by cuts of 67 percent, and sees itself compelled to go through all projects in search of terms such as “women” and “diversity”.
The NSF (National Science Foundation) has since the 1950s supported tens of thousands of research projects-on all possible topics. But like other government agencies in the United States, it is now covered by Donald Trump’s presidential decrees, which, among other things, judge diversity and gender equality work as “discrimination”.
To make sure that you do not violate the new rules, the staff now use keywords in a review of thousands of ongoing projects, writes The Washington Post. Among the terms that can trigger warning flags are completely everyday words such as “women” and “historically”.
Notified
At the same time, the researchers have already been instructed not to use appropriations from NSF to “use or promote principles and contexts on diversity, equality, inclusion and accessibility”, according to the newspaper.
The question is how much at all remains by the US federal research budget, which has gone to investments around the world – even as far away as the South Pole. According to the media, the White House’s staff unit OPM has notified that around half of NSF’s employees may be terminated. And according to industry sites such as Science, information flourishes that Trump’s plan is to cut the budget by two -thirds.
Manager cried
“My boss cried when she told us,” an anonymous NSF employee told Science.
– This is nothing they want to do. But they have no choice.
Experts warn that the drastic restructures put the US world -leading role in science in danger. But it remains to be seen what Trump gets through in Congress.
NSF’s financial framework is set in the state budget, and no such congress has even agreed for the current financial year, which began in October. Drawings will take effect for the financial year 2026, which will thus begin this fall – if the congress politicians vote yes.