AIP Webinar Helps Physical Sciences Community Navigate Proposed OMB Rule

When the White House Office of Management and Budget proposed a rule that would make major changes to federal policy for awarding grants, many scientists started raising alarms. If implemented as written, the rule would give political appointees a stronger say over grant decisions, prohibit the use of federal funds for publishing, and place severe restrictions on international collaboration.

By the close of the comment period on July 13, the rule had garnered tens of thousands of comments submitted to the Federal Register. But when it was first posted on May 29, many people didn’t understand the significance of the rule.

“To a person who doesn’t really know that much about grant policy or how this would affect the scientific community, the rule sounds reasonable,” explained Lindsay Milliken, AIP’s associate director of public policy research and analysis. “This means the research community has a bigger obstacle to overcome in showing the general public and lawmakers that it will have a huge impact.”

Milliken saw a need for greater education among the physical sciences community on the proposed rule’s content and how to communicate its impacts. In the informational events she had attended after the proposed rule was released, Milliken felt that there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to answer the questions that many scientists had about the nuts and bolts of the rule.

“There was a knowledge gap between what people were assuming the community knew and what they actually knew,” she said.

Milliken, along with AIP’s policy and engagement senior specialist Laura Lyon, FYI senior editor Jacob Taylor, and APS director of public affairs Mark Elsesser, hosted a webinar on June 17 to talk specifics about how the proposed OMB uniform guidance could impact science.

Milliken said that, before the webinar, she had been receiving a lot of questions from the physical sciences community about the logistics of the rule and how it would affect their jobs.

“It’s a 400-plus page proposed rule,” said Elsesser. “We know that our members — and other AIP-affiliated society members — all have day jobs that aren’t reading federal regulations and proposed rules. For me, a big part of the webinar was to try to break down the key pieces of the proposed rule that we think are most impactful to our membership and give them those pieces in a digestible way.”

“We thought that doing a webinar would be the easiest way to deliver that content,” Milliken added. “It was also a way that we could spend a lot of time answering audience questions.”

After the webinar, the nature of the inquiries changed, and individuals wanted to know how they could make their voices heard, either by submitting comments on the proposed rule or getting involved with other types of science policy advocacy.

APS was among many scientific societies encouraging their members to comment on the proposed rule. In collaboration with over 30 societies — including AIP member organizations like the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, American Association of Physics Teachers, and American Crystallographic Association — APS launched a portal to streamline the process for its members.

By the time the comment period closed, Elsesser said they had received over 4,700 submissions.

AIP has also promoted resources on its homepage from other member organizations, such as the American Astronomical Society and the American Geophysical Union.

“We had some great feedback — people thought the webinar was super helpful,” Milliken said. “They were very excited to have something that really seemed to understand where the audience was.”

She said that AIP hopes to host events like this regularly, providing space for members of the physical sciences community to come together in challenging times. AIP’s next webinar, concerning the proposed “duration of status” rule, will take place Aug. 12 at 12 p.m. ET and is open for registration at this link .