Exclusive: NIH to terminate hundreds of active research grants \ stacker news ~science

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Exclusive: NIH to terminate hundreds of active research grants www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00703-1

675 sats \ 8 comments \ @south_korea_ln 6 Mar science

Although many NIH research grants run for longer, scientists generally receive their funding one year at a time and are required to submit a progress report to the agency annually. NIH staff members then review this report and can issue a continuation of funding.

The agency, based in Bethesda, Maryland, has now asked its employees to review new and ongoing projects for any DEI activities and to place them in one of four categories: projects that solely support DEI-related activities (category one), projects that partially support these activities (category two), projects that do not support these activities but include some DEI-related language (category three) and projects that do not support any DEI activities (category four).

The NIH’s 27 institutes and centres should not issue awards for research in category one, according to a guidance document obtained by Nature and sent to some employees this week. Category-two research must be renegotiated with the lead researcher or institution on the grant to remove any DEI activities. If the work cannot be renegotiated, the institute must seek termination of the project, the document says.

Category-three and -four research can continue unimpeded as long as any DEI language is stripped from the application or progress report.

Putting aside political ideology, as a scientist, i would not be happy if an ongoing grant were to be cancelled due to a change in leadership.

I would better understand if new grants were granted differently based on changes in policy.

But here, for PHD students who make an ideological choice sometimes to not chase the big money, this can have profound consequences when a multiyear grant is suddenly cancelled midway. Just because they chose the wrong topic.

I know DEI is not popular here, so not much love lost, most likely, but this creates precedent where a next administration can decide to cancel less controversial grants, for any reason they seem fit.

I'm not sure about the US, but the yearly administrative renewal for a grant that runs for 3 years for instance, as mentioned here, is common in Korea too, but it's usually just a formality.

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167 sats \ 2 replies \ @TNStacker 6 Mar

The grants here are typically 5 years. Faculty are currently holding off hiring graduate students (PhD earning research assistants) Post-Docs, and early career research scientists.

Just a note: All authoritarians start with the intellectuals. Does anyone remember the Khmer Rouge? They killed (millions) or marched all the intellectuals to the farmlands to work manual labor. Eh hem, for those asking who will pick the crops when they throw out the immigrants...

Many of you won't like this warning, but Stay WOKE!

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Satosora 6 Mar

I dont think we have to stay woke, but we should question what we are asked to do. That doesnt mean it has to be woke, just morally right.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 6 Mar

Don't be right and asleep, my friend. 🤣

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 6 Mar

It is a pain for those researchers, for sure, but these are public monies and one administration isn't allowed to make financial commitments for the next. The legislature can, and is supposed to manage financial matters, but they've been shirking that responsibility this entire century.

What's happening, I think(hope), is they're attempting to zero-base government spending. Every accountability assessment concludes that very large shares of the US budget are wasteful. It never gets addressed, though, because spending has always rolled over from year to year. Making agencies justify all of their expenses from scratch is potentially a way to not renew all of the graft, corruption, and waste.

56 sats \ 3 replies \ @south_korea_ln OP 6 Mar

So you mean, no public money can be committed for periods spanning longer than 4 years? No long-term planning? I am probably misunderstanding, giving your comment on the legislature right after.

As for zero-basing government spending, yes, that makes sense under the premise that graft, corruption, and waste is going on. Not disputing that. However, if so, I'd like to see it happen regardless of party lines. Then, it would give credence to the goal of removing waste. If it's just DEI stuff and left-wing woke stuff, then it's more ideological than improving government efficiency.

Is DOGE going to make sure there is no government spending waste going on in terms of

military funding?
police funding?
farming subsidies?
prison funding?
subsidies for religious organizations?
etc

(just listed random points that I would imagine the "right" would be ok to spend government money on... the examples are not the point, i guess you see what I'm trying to say)

101 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 6 Mar

Financial planning is constitutionally the purview of Congress. However, Congress has largely abdicated this responsibility, because they discovered that politically it's better to not have your name on anything that your opponent can campaign against.

So, there can be long-term financial commitments imposed on the Executive Branch. However, even those can be undone by the next Congress. Nothing else is compatible with the idea of representative government. There has to be a mechanism for the public will to be manifest in policy change.

DOGE is looking into everything (supposedly). They've already started digging through the military, justice department (American police and prisons aren't primarily federal), and agriculture programs. We don't have subsidies for religious organizations.

There's almost certainly going to be more Democrat corruption exposed for the simple reason that over 90% of the federal workforce are Democrats. They just have way more opportunity to get away with stuff.

41 sats \ 1 reply \ @south_korea_ln OP 6 Mar

Very interesting. You clearly know more about it than I do~~

Are churches still tax-exempt in the US?

By definition, those are not subsidies, but one could argue that they provide financial support akin to subsidies by not taking away some of their revenue.

But yeah, this specific example wasn't my point, nor your point. It's good to learn that DOGE is looking into everything. It's not going to be easy though to judge "objectively" what is waste (corruption is probably easier to define). Good that not every government money relates to controversial topics and it'll be easier to find and deal with waste and corruption in those non-controversial topics.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 6 Mar

It's an example of the tradeoff between type I and type II errors. The old system flagged almost nothing as waste/fraud/etc. and as such generated almost no false positives (inappropriate cuts).

A properly balanced system wouldn't have zero errors, which means it will generate more false positives, while reducing false negatives (things that should have been cut but weren't).