Plan to overhaul grantmaking shakes researchers
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OMB director Russell Vought during a Senate budget hearing in April. Photo: Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
A Trump administration proposal to overhaul how research agencies award grants is stoking new fears about political interference in publicly funded medical research.
The big picture: The document tracks with past administration efforts to cut funding, but would establish a standard framework for the whole government.
- The administration wants to reduce funding for research it says doesn't support the mission of agencies like National Institutes of Health, including diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
What's inside: The Office of Management and Budget proposal would treat peer reviews by program officers or scientists as advisory, and would make political appointees do a "pre-issuance review" to ensure discretionary grants advance the president's policy priorities.
- It also lays out criteria for not funding or promoting DEI policies, "theories or ideologies that deny the biological reality of sex or the sex binary in humans," or procedures to transition a person under 19 from one gender to another.
- It would also allow grants to be terminated if the work "no longer effectuates program goals, federal agency priorities, or the national interest."
Flashback: The Supreme Court last summer allowed the administration to proceed with cuts to hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of NIH grants tied to DEI studies.
What they're saying: "What OMB is proposing is not a reform of grants management. It is a complete political control apparatus layered over every stage of the federal science funding lifecycle," former NIH program official Elizabeth Ginexi wrote on Substack.
- The advocacy group Stand Up for Science called the proposal "an unprecedented power grab" by OMB director Russell Vought that would upend the system of allowing research agencies to dictate the spending of their funding alongside Congress.
The other side: OMB says the revisions are aimed at ensuring tax dollars aren't wasted, funded activities are consistent with law and policy and that recipients are held accountable.
- The administration is accepting public comments through July 13.
