NSF grant terminations and the President

I haven’t said much about the current President. I haven’t known what to say that is meaningful and helpful, and I still don’t. I’ve been frustrated, mad, and even anxious (the last being atypical for me, recently). There are many reasons to be those, I think—social, moral, economic, and just in terms of pride and honor as a person and an American. And so what I will share is not the biggest thing, but it’s a thing.

As many of you know, the NSF has terminated many grants over the past few weeks — the past two Fridays, particularly. There has been some new coverage of it; here’s one story. I have witnessed this first hand, and indeed I can’t make this up: While I was presenting at AERA, the grant I was fortunate to be presenting on was terminated. It was around 2:00 pm ET, when many such terminations were being received. I checked my phone and saw the text from my colleague — our project ended as of that day. I wasn’t the lead of the project (I wasn’t a PI), and my concerns are more about the waste and the harm the termination caused. This project was years in its planning and one-and-a-half years into the three-year project. The reason it was terminated? In the public abstract, a mention of how the project supports equity in terms of welcoming youth to data science was included. That was it. So, yeah, the rest of the afternoon was spent mostly on figuring out what the heck to do about the project and how to support those involved. It was a weird day to be at a conference.

A few hours later, another I was involved with (again not as PI) was terminated. This one mentioned supporting underrepresented groups in STEM. We are halfway through data collection for an experimental study. The timing and rationale for the termination were, I think, pretty irrational.

What does it mean? I think there are effects of these cancellations for me and others over different time horizons. I think we’re trying to figure out how to move ahead, support one another.

Three colleagues in my department have had NSF grants terminated. Many, many other colleagues have shared tthat heir grants have been terminated. You can see a crowdsourced list here.

I don’t have a thesis for this post — I just felt like I wanted and needed to share.