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The National Science Foundation is next agency in line for a massive shake-up under the Trump Administration. Staff were reportedly informed last week that the agency’s 37 divisions—across all eight NSF directorates—are being abolished and the number of programs within those divisions will be drastically reduced. The current directors and deputy directors will lose their titles and might be reassigned to other positions at the agency or elsewhere in the federal government.

The NSF’s new structure will retain the existing directorates but replace divisions with “clusters” that fund research in the president’s five priority areas: artificial intelligence, quantum information science, biotechnology, nuclear energy, and translational science.

The consolidation appears to be driven in part by President Donald Trump’s proposal to cut the agency’s $4 billion budget by 55% for the 2026 fiscal year that begins on October 1. Furthermore, the NSF is expected to send termination notices to an unspecified number of its 1700-member staff.

In addition to staff layoffs, the NSF will significantly reduce the number of scientists it employs through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act. Under this program, scientists on leave from their academic positions work with the NSF to help the agency choose the best research to fund. NSF currently hosts 368 scientists but plans to slash this number to 70 by June 9.

The move comes after the recent announcement that the NSF would begin capping reimbursement rates for indirect research costs at 15%, mirroring the funding cuts at the NIH and the Department of Energy, both of which have been blocked in court. A number of universities and associations have filed a suit to block this move as well.

Helpful Links:

NSF slashes number of ‘rotators’ and well-paid managers as part of restructuring | Science | AAAS

Exclusive: NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions | Science | AAAS

Please follow the link below to access a helpful one pager explaining Facilities and Administration costs for federally funded research.

The True Cost of Research

On Thursday night, the House Budget Committee advanced their budget resolution, the first legislative step toward fulfilling Donald Trump’s policy agenda. The fiscal blueprint was advanced in a 21-16 party line vote after GOP hardliners on the committee were brought on board following weeks of negotiations. The next step for the resolution is a floor vote in the House, another difficult task with the GOP’s razor-thin majority.

The budget resolution contains reconciliation instructions, meaning that, if adopted by both chambers, it will instruct certain committees to draft legislation implementing spending changes. Each committee that receives instructions then writes a bill to achieve the prescribed target, before the bills are packaged into one large piece of legislation. Crucially, this legislation cannot be filibustered in the Senate, meaning that it can be passed by a simple majority in both chambers.

The passage out of committee comes after weeks of negotiations and infighting among House Republicans, with Budget Committee hardliners holding up passage by demanding larger spending cuts. The uncertainty in the House led Senate GOP leaders to introduce their own budget resolution last week. Senate Republicans largely favor a two-step reconciliation approach, with border security, defense, and energy being tackled early in the year and tax cuts receiving a separate legislative package later on. House GOP leaders, on the other hand, favor the Trump-backed plan to advance the entire legislative package in “one big, beautiful bill.” The passage of their resolution out of the Budget Committee brings them one step closer to achieving this goal.

The resolution, which House Budget Chair Joey Arrington (R-TX) called “the fiscal framework for what will be one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in modern history,” instructs the House Ways and Means Committee to come up with tax cuts that will increase the deficit by up to $4.5 trillion over a decade. It orders other committees, including the Education and Workforce, Energy and Commerce, and Agriculture Committees, to cut at least $1.5 trillion from mandatory spending programs to help offset these tax cuts.

The House is set to schedule a vote on the resolution during the last week of February.

As noted above, the Senate Republicans’ preference on reconciliation is through two bills and the Senate Budget Committee approved its first budget resolution on Wednesday.  The two chambers will need to bridge their differences along the way.

Late Thursday morning, the Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in a 52-48 vote.

All but one Republican voted in favor of confirmation, the lone exception being Mitch McConnell who joined all Democrats in opposition.

Trump named Kennedy as his nominee to lead the HHS in November after Kennedy dropped his own presidential bid and endorsed Trump. Kennedy now becomes the top health official in the nation, responsible for overseeing the department’s nearly $2 trillion budget.