Top U.S. science funder slows research grants to universities

Top U.S. science funder slows research grants to universities

It's not clear why the National Science Foundation may be limiting funding to certain U.S. universities

Update: On May 28 the NSF’s OAM removed from its database the note “Future Awards to Organization on Hold” for Duke, Harvard and Yale. And a few grants for researchers at Harvard and Duke have been released, according to agency staff members who spoke to Nature.

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) — a major funder of basic research — has restricted the flow of new research grants to a group of elite universities, Nature has learnt.

Internal agency documents obtained by Nature ’s news team reveal that on 9 April, the NSF’s Office of Award Management (OAM), which finalizes grants and handles their finances, put limits on new funding to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina; Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Princeton University in New Jersey; and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. A note applied to these universities in an NSF database reads: “Future Awards to Organization on Hold.” Since then, little fresh funding has been made available to these institutions by the NSF.

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It is unclear why the NSF, which has an annual budget of US$8.8 billion, is limiting new funding to these particular universities or when the restriction will end. The agency declined a request for comment from Nature .

Last year, the administration of US President Donald Trump froze or terminated research funding for several US institutions , alleging violations of federal anti-discrimination policy, such as a failure to protect students against antisemitism. Some institutions struck deals with the administration to restore funds . Harvard, which had about 75% of its research grants terminated by the NSF, sued. A federal judge ruled last September that the terminations were illegal and permanently banned US agencies, including the NSF, from taking similar action against Harvard in the future.