2 ms·

How is this different than adding DEI requirements, the inability to study schedule 1 drugs, or the restrictions placed under the Dickey-Wicker amendment? Fede

How is this different than adding DEI requirements, the inability to study schedule 1 drugs, or the restrictions placed under the Dickey-Wicker amendment? Federal grants have always been subject to politics.

SpicyLemonZest 4mo ago
It's different because it explicitly prohibits deferring to peer reviewers and explicitly requires that grants must "advance the President's policy priorities". Previous restrictions were guiderails for or additional screens on top of the underlying merit-based review; now the merit-based review is secondary and the primary criterion is whether the President's minions like the proposal.
- JCTheDenthog 4mo ago
  How did the merit-based review regularly let things like these through? (Picked by scrolling at random through a list of cancelled grants): $2.4 million for "Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) Girls in a Robotics Leadership Project" $1.2 million for "FW-HTF-R: Collaborative Research: Virtual Meeting Support for Enhanced Well-Being and Equity for Game Developers" $700k for "CAREER: Advancing Equity in Middle School Mathematics by Engaging Students and Families of Color in Participatory Design Research" Etc., etc., etc.
  - SpicyLemonZest 4mo ago
    NSF awards in general are public information, so you can look up any award you'd like to see how and why they were approved. The first (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2116118 https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2116118) and third (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2144506 https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2144506) were approved as part of the NSF's Directorate of STEM Education, a still-ongoing initiative to ensure the US has a strong talent pipeline of upcoming scientists. It was and remains common for them to toss money at people with kids who otherwise might not be educated well in science; recent Trump-era grants include "Social Mobility through ARkansas Tech program" (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2527972 https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2527972) and "STEM Journeys - From College to Career" (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2527683 https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2527683). (I suspect we'll agree that the original examples are framed with strange racial overtones, which you could imagine legitimate political guardrails against even if the peer reviewers don't mind.) The second (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2128991 https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2128991) is core social science research. Virtual meetings had recently become an extremely common phenomenon, and the investigators claim this led them to discovering (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cyber.2021.0112 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cyber.2021.011...) the mechanism behind the then-novel phenomenon of Zoom fatigue.

SpicyLemonZest 4mo ago

It's different because it explicitly prohibits deferring to peer reviewers and explicitly requires that grants must "advance the President's policy priorities". Previous restrictions were guiderails for or additional screens on top of the underlying merit-based review; now the merit-based review is secondary and the primary criterion is whether the President's minions like the proposal.

JCTheDenthog 4mo ago
How did the merit-based review regularly let things like these through? (Picked by scrolling at random through a list of cancelled grants): $2.4 million for "Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) Girls in a Robotics Leadership Project" $1.2 million for "FW-HTF-R: Collaborative Research: Virtual Meeting Support for Enhanced Well-Being and Equity for Game Developers" $700k for "CAREER: Advancing Equity in Middle School Mathematics by Engaging Students and Families of Color in Participatory Design Research" Etc., etc., etc.
- SpicyLemonZest 4mo ago
  NSF awards in general are public information, so you can look up any award you'd like to see how and why they were approved. The first (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2116118 https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2116118) and third (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2144506 https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2144506) were approved as part of the NSF's Directorate of STEM Education, a still-ongoing initiative to ensure the US has a strong talent pipeline of upcoming scientists. It was and remains common for them to toss money at people with kids who otherwise might not be educated well in science; recent Trump-era grants include "Social Mobility through ARkansas Tech program" (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2527972 https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2527972) and "STEM Journeys - From College to Career" (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2527683 https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2527683). (I suspect we'll agree that the original examples are framed with strange racial overtones, which you could imagine legitimate political guardrails against even if the peer reviewers don't mind.) The second (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2128991 https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2128991) is core social science research. Virtual meetings had recently become an extremely common phenomenon, and the investigators claim this led them to discovering (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cyber.2021.0112 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cyber.2021.011...) the mechanism behind the then-novel phenomenon of Zoom fatigue.