Science policy this week: April 14, 2025

What’s Ahead

The Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C.

DOE

DOE sharply cuts funds for indirect costs of university research

The Department of Energy announced last week it will immediately cap indirect cost rates at 15% to “halt inefficient spending” by universities, mirroring a move by NIH in February that has been blocked by a federal judge. DOE stated the uniform cap will save over $405 million annually and “help improve efficiency, reduce costs and ensure proper stewardship of American taxpayer dollars.” The DOE and NIH moves signal a sea change in the federal government’s attitude toward financing indirect costs, which support activities such as equipment and facilities maintenance, IT services, and administrative support. “The purpose of Department of Energy funding to colleges and universities is to support scientific research – not foot the bill for administrative costs and facility upgrades,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement.

University groups quickly moved to contest DOE’s move. “This is a ruinous policy. Our nation’s economic competitors are laughing at another self-inflicted policy wound that will slow the pace of American research and innovation,” said Matt Owens, president of the Council on Government Relations, an association of research institutions. “We stand ready to work with the Trump administration to improve research indirect costs policy and to reduce the red tape encumbering federally sponsored research.” COGR recently issued a document of recommendations to improve government efficiency in research management and joined other research associations in announcing an effort to develop a new funding model for indirect costs. DOE’s press release says that the average rate of indirect costs incurred by the department’s grant recipients at colleges and universities is more than 30%.

Trump’s budget likely to propose major science cuts

Leaked drafts of President Donald Trump’s upcoming budget request to Congress suggest he plans to seek massive cuts to science programs. A preliminary version of the budget revealed last week proposes cutting NASA’s Science Mission Directorate by about 50% to $3.9 billion for fiscal year 2026. A similar document for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls for cutting the agency’s budget by 27% to $4.5 billion and eliminating its Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. Some of that office’s research would be transferred to other parts of NOAA, according to press accounts of the proposal.

Research groups have reacted with alarm to the prospect of such cuts. The American Astronomical Society stated last week that a 50% cut to NASA’s science directorate would be “catastrophic to our nation’s leadership in the space sciences, damaging a broad range of research areas that are unlikely to be supported by the private sector.” In anticipation of proposed budget cuts, the American Meteorological Society issued an open letter to Americans last month highlighting the economic benefits of federal science funding, and the American Physical Society is collecting stories of the positive impacts of research funded by federal agencies. (These three groups are AIP Member Societies.)

Meanwhile, the House and Senate have begun preparing to draft their own budget proposals for the upcoming fiscal year. The chairs of the Senate Appropriations Committee put out their initial instructions for the appropriations process last week, including how to submit requests for earmarks, and said hearings will commence later this month. House appropriators put out similar instructions earlier this month and have already begun their budget hearings.

More university research frozen by Trump administration

The Trump administration apparently has ordered the National Institutes of Health to stop paying investigators on all existing agency-funded projects at Columbia University and block new funding as it pressures the university to take certain actions in response to an antisemitism probe, according to Science. The administration is also seeking formal oversight of the university through a legal agreement called a consent decree, according to The Wall Street Journal. The agreement would likely require negotiation between the administration and the university under the oversight of a judge. The administration already froze $400 million in research funding last month to pressure the university to take various actions, such as hiring security officers who can remove people from campus or arrest them and placing departments focused on Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies under the oversight of a new official rather than faculty.

Meanwhile, the administration has increasingly used research funding as a lever to pressure additional universities to implement its policy priorities. For instance, last week Cornell and Northwestern received stop-work orders and funding-freeze notices spanning grants from several agencies. Among the affected projects is a collaboration between the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source and the Air Force Research Lab, Scientific American reported. Harvard University, which is under threat of a sweeping freeze on federal research funding, announced today it would not comply with the administration’s demands, arguing they exceed federal authorities and violate First Amendment protections.

NOAA refires probationary employees

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has reportedly refired hundreds of probationary employees who were first fired in February and then reinstated and put on administrative leave in March. Former NOAA employees impacted by the decision expressed dismay on social media, describing the experience as a “roller coaster” and a “wild and silly process,” for instance. NOAA’s actions followed the news last Wednesday that an appeals court stayed a Maryland judge’s ruling preventing 18 federal agencies from firing probationary employees in certain states. The day before, the Supreme Court paused a similar but separate ruling by a San Francisco judge, effectively halting the reinstatement of fired probationary workers nationwide at six government departments: Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury, Agriculture, and Veterans Affairs.

Also on our radar

NSF halved the number of awards from its flagship Graduate Research Fellowship program to 1,000 while leaving open the possibility of making more awards depending on “future resourcing considerations.”
The Trump administration has canceled a major contract supporting the U.S. Global Change Research Program and fired several of its staff, according to Politico. The administration also canceled $4 million in climate research grants at Princeton University, including for the Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System, stating it “promotes exaggerated and implausible climate threats.” It is unclear if CIMES has been fully defunded, as it was last renewed in 2023 for $85 million over the following five years.
NIH has barred scientists working in China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela from accessing various biomedical databases, citing a Biden-era executive order that directed actions to better protect Americans’ data from adversarial countries. Separately, the Justice Department issued an FAQ last week about the executive order implementation.
In response to Trump’s tariffs, China reportedly halted most exports of rare earth magnets and six rare earth metals pending implementation of a new export licensing process.
Last week, Trump ordered investigations into state laws “burdening” energy generation, with an emphasis on those that mention climate change, environmental justice, or greenhouse gas emissions. Trump also ordered DOE to “accelerate the development, deployment, and commercialization of coal technologies” and to study using coal to power AI data centers.
Data-focused organizations have formed a coalition to support efforts to “rescue” public federal datasets that are at risk of becoming inaccessible.