White House Report Calls for Sweeping Overhaul of the Federal Research Enterprise
On July 21, 2026, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released Science: A New Golden Age, a report to the President authored by OSTP Director Michael Kratsios. Billed as the first comprehensive rethinking of the U.S. science and technology enterprise since Vannevar Bush's 1945 Science: The Endless Frontier, the document argues that the current research system has become overly bureaucratic, risk-averse, and slow to translate discoveries into practical outcomes. It describes researchers as working within an “increasingly calcified system” that has driven up the cost of scientific progress and calls for broad reforms across federal agencies, universities, industry, and philanthropy to accelerate scientific innovation.
The report is accompanied by a Fiscal Year 2028 R&D Priorities Memorandum, issued jointly with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought. Federal research agencies are directed to submit action plans within 90 days and to reflect the guidance in their FY 2028 budget submissions, meaning the recommendations could begin reshaping agency practice at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) over the coming months. The memo specifies that the 90-day action-plan requirement falls on agencies with $3 billion or more in R&D budget authority—a threshold that captures both NIH and NSF—and addresses how those agencies will execute their FY 2026 and FY 2027 budgets, while longer-term funding changes are to be reflected in FY 2028 requests. These proposals arrive as AIBS and hundreds of partner organizations continue to weigh in on a separate OMB rewrite of federal grant regulations.
The report calls for refocusing federal funding on individual researchers rather than institutions. It recommends expanding “portable graduate fellowships” such as the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program, strengthening support for early-career independence, and scaling long-horizon awards modeled on the NIH Director's Pioneer Award. Citing the rising average age of first-time NIH principal investigators—from the mid-thirties in 1980 to the early forties today—the report argues that current structures push scientists toward safe, incremental work rather than transformative discovery. The R&D memo is more specific, directing agencies to expand long-duration grants of five years or more that are fully funded in the first year—citing the NIH Director's Pioneer Award and the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship as models—and to create low-friction “fast grants” reviewed in under a month, alongside fellowships paid directly to researchers so that support remains portable if they change institutions.
The report also urges agencies to move beyond consensus-driven peer review by adopting a wider menu of selection mechanisms, including “golden tickets” that let individual reviewers advance bold proposals, fast grants, prize challenges, and regranting models. The report points to early experiments already underway at NSF's Technology, Innovation and Partnerships Directorate and a new metascience unit at NIH, and recommends that agencies stand up empowered offices to run controlled experiments on how grants are reviewed and awarded.
Additionally, the report calls for reining in indirect cost recovery—stating that negotiated rates now reach 50 to 60 percent of direct costs—and redirecting those funds to research infrastructure. It also criticizes what it describes as an erosion of merit-based selection, singling out NSF's “broader impacts” criterion and the growth of diversity-focused grant language.
Notably, the accompanying memo directs agencies to rebalance their research portfolios toward the physical sciences and engineering, observing that recent growth in non-defense federal R&D has been concentrated in the life sciences. It also draws a sharp distinction between the broad “life sciences” and “foundational research in the biological sciences,” instructing agencies with broad life-sciences missions to prioritize the latter. The memo names molecular, cellular, and structural biology; biochemistry; genetics, genomics, and synthetic and engineering biology; neuroscience; and microbiology and quantitative biology as priority fields that underpin biotechnology, biomanufacturing, and human health. How agencies interpret that distinction could shape which areas of biological research see sustained support.
Beyond funding mechanics, the report advances new institutional models—including NSF's recently launched X-Labs, expanded ARPA-style agencies, and curiosity-driven institutes—and places the AI-driven Genesis Mission at its center, with a stated goal of doubling the productivity of U.S. science within a decade. Related recommendations on domain-specific scientific foundation models and datasets, autonomous laboratories, and the Restoring Gold Standard Science Executive Order's emphasis on reproducibility, transparency, and data sharing carry direct implications for how scientific data are managed and funded. The memo goes further, urging agencies to reward researchers for curating and sharing data that is too often abandoned—including negative results and routine laboratory records—and to invest in mid-scale instrumentation and shared user facilities with broadened access, provisions relevant to how biological research data and infrastructure are supported. Both documents press agencies to integrate AI and advanced computing into research and to make scientific datasets accessible for AI training, in service of Administration priorities that include biotechnology and biomanufacturing.
The report's release was timed to a congressional hearing. On July 22, the day after publication, Kratsios testified on the Administration's research budget before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, at a session titled “Unleashing the Golden Age of Science.” Committee Republicans praised the vision, with Chairman Brian Babin (R-TX) arguing that success should be measured by priorities and results rather than by dollars spent. Democrats and several outside scientists were sharply critical, warning that the plan would weaken universities and basic research by concentrating funding on a handful of commercialization-focused fields—artificial intelligence, quantum, fusion, space, semiconductors, and robotics—and would compound damage from grant terminations, layoffs, and proposed agency budget cuts over the past 18 months.
House Passes Stopgap Funding Bill as FY 2027 Appropriations Stall
The House has passed a continuing resolution (CR) that would extend current federal funding through December 4, 2026, moving months ahead of the September 30 deadline to avert a government shutdown. Approved largely along party lines by a vote of 220-205, the measure would keep agencies operating at current funding levels while delaying final fiscal year (FY) 2027 appropriations negotiations until after the November midterm elections. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) said advancing a “clean” stopgap measure early would help avoid last-minute shutdown brinkmanship.
The bill now moves to the Senate, where its prospects are uncertain. Senate appropriators are discussing a different bipartisan approach that would include limited funding “anomalies”—targeted adjustments for programs that could face disruptions under flat funding. The White House has already submitted a list of requested anomalies, but they were not included in the House-passed measure. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has indicated he hopes to bring a Senate CR to the floor before the August recess.
Congress has made uneven progress on FY 2027 appropriations. The House has completed committee action on all 12 appropriations bills and passed three on the floor, while the Senate has yet to consider any appropriations measures. As a result, final funding levels for federal science agencies are unlikely to be resolved before the start of the new fiscal year on October 1, with negotiations expected to continue into the fall. (see a summary of proposed FY 2027 science spending levels)
NSF X-Labs Initiative Raises Questions for Core Research
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is facing questions about whether its new commercialization-focused X-Labs initiative could come at the expense of traditional investigator-driven basic research.
NSF launched X-Labs in May with a planned investment of up to $1.5 billion over the next decade to support ambitious, high-impact research efforts focused on moving discoveries beyond traditional academic outputs, such as publications and datasets, toward commercially viable technologies. Housed within the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate, X-Labs is designed around independent, milestone-driven research teams with significant autonomy in decision-making, staffing, partnerships, and operations, drawing on concepts associated with focused research organizations and ARPA-style research models.
Reporting by Science and Nature has raised questions about how the initiative will be funded. According to the reports, NSF has reduced or considered reducing funding for multiple existing research programs, with internal documents and agency sources suggesting some programs could face cuts of 20% to 30% or more. The Biological Sciences (BIO) Directorate is reportedly facing a reduction of approximately $200 million from its roughly $800 million FY 2025 budget. NSF has disputed reports that funding is being redirected from core research programs to support X-Labs, stating that those claims are inaccurate.
According to Science, NSF announced X-Labs without initially explaining how the initiative would be financed, and agency sources said reductions to existing programs were being used to free up resources. Nature similarly reported that internal NSF documents and staff accounts described plans to reduce grant-making budgets by roughly $500 million, potentially affecting proposals that had been close to receiving awards. However, during a recent BIO virtual office hour, NSF officials rejected the characterization that funding was being shifted from other directorates to TIP, stating that TIP already had the funds allocated within its own budget.
The reports have fueled concern among many researchers that reductions in NSF's investigator-driven programs could weaken the agency's longstanding support for fundamental research. More broadly, the discussion highlights the ongoing challenge of balancing targeted, mission-driven initiatives designed to accelerate innovation with sustained investment in investigator-led basic research.
CDC Director Nominee Faces Questions on Scientific Independence
Dr. Erica Schwartz, President Trump's nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), appeared before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on July 15, where senators focused heavily on vaccine policy, scientific integrity, and the independence of CDC leadership. A retired rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, Schwartz previously served as Chief Medical Officer of the U.S. Coast Guard and is currently President of Insurance Solutions for Medicare and Retirement at UnitedHealthcare.
Schwartz pledged that, if confirmed, restoring public trust through transparency and scientific integrity would be her top priority and repeatedly said she would “follow the science” in developing public health guidance. Addressing vaccine hesitancy, she said, “I want to be the CDC director for all Americans,” including those who have concerns about vaccines, emphasizing the importance of listening to patients and having “an open conversation with them.” However, she declined to speculate on whether she would oppose directives from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or the President that conflicted with scientific evidence, prompting questions from both Republican and Democratic senators about the CDC's independence.
The hearing also examined research priorities and the agency's future direction. Schwartz said she was unaware of recent cuts to mRNA vaccine research but committed to reviewing them. She also said she would refocus the CDC on its core mission of preventing and responding to infectious diseases while supporting research on emerging environmental health issues, including potential health impacts associated with data centers.
To help restore trust within the agency, Schwartz said she would hold a “listening session” with CDC scientists to rebuild relationships between career staff and political appointees. She also said she hopes to strengthen state and local public health capacity so jurisdictions are less dependent on the CDC, adding, “I do not want to have a CDC that is a rigid top-down CDC.” Following the hearing, HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-LA) announced his support for Schwartz's nomination, citing her commitment to evidence-based vaccine policy and subsequent changes to CDC vaccine information.
The committee also considered the nomination of Sean Kaufman, a public health professional with experience at the CDC and Emory University, to serve as Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the HHS official responsible for coordinating the nation's medical and public health emergency preparedness efforts. Kaufman's past statements on vaccines drew significant scrutiny from senators, who questioned him about social media posts in which he said he would “perish” than have his children receive a COVID-19 vaccine and questioned the hepatitis B birth dose. Kaufman responded that vaccines “save lives” and said he believes mRNA vaccines are safe and effective, while continuing to call for additional study of vaccine safety and emphasizing the importance of therapeutics, including monoclonal antibody therapy, in responding to future public health emergencies. Following an intense hearing, the HELP Committee removed Kaufman's nomination from its July 23 voting agenda, stating that discussions with the Administration about the path forward were ongoing.
If confirmed, Schwartz would lead the CDC as it responds to several significant public health challenges, including the ongoing multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak and the international Ebola outbreak. A committee vote on Schwartz's nomination, originally scheduled for July 23, was postponed after Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was absent because of a family emergency, leaving Republicans without enough members present to advance the nomination. Cassidy said the committee expects to vote when it next convenes.
NASEM Climate Attribution Report Draws Political Fire
On July 16, 2026, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a major new report examining the rapidly advancing science of extreme event attribution—the field that assesses whether and to what extent human-caused climate change has influenced specific weather events, such as heat waves, floods, hurricanes, and wildfires.
The report concludes that attribution science has matured significantly over the past decade and can now provide scientifically robust assessments for many types of extreme events, with the highest confidence for heat waves and heavy precipitation. Confidence remains lower for small-scale phenomena such as severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hail, which current climate models still struggle to resolve. The report also recommends continued investments in observations, climate models, and interdisciplinary research to improve attribution capabilities.
The report has implications well beyond climate science. Attribution methods are increasingly being used by emergency managers, insurers, infrastructure planners, and public health officials to better understand climate risks and improve planning for future disasters. The findings could also inform ongoing litigation in which states and local governments seek to hold fossil fuel companies financially responsible for damages associated with climate change—though the report itself takes no position on how the science should be applied.
Within days of the report's release, President Trump threatened federal funding for the National Academies—directing officials to open a suspension-and-debarment review—over what he called “fraudulent, biased, and misleading” climate work. Trump’s post actually singled out a separate NASEM product—a chapter on climate science that the federal judiciary withdrew from its reference manual in February—rather than the attribution report itself. At a recent hearing, White House science adviser Michael Kratsios encouraged lawmakers on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, which is separately investigating the organization, to continue their oversight. The National Academies defended its work, emphasizing that it was developed by an independent expert committee through established conflict-of-interest, peer-review, and consensus processes and reflects the current state of the scientific evidence.
The dispute comes amid broader changes to the federal government's approach to climate science. Earlier this month, Matthew M. Wielicki, a geochemist and podcaster known for downplaying climate risks, was appointed director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), which coordinates the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment, after the Administration dismissed many of the scientists working on the next assessment. Taken together, the moves signal an environment in which the nation’s foremost scientific advisory bodies increasingly find their independence, and their funding, contingent on conclusions that align with administration policy.
NSF Seeks Input on Major Revision of Proposal and Award Policies
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is seeking public comment on a sweeping revision of its Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG), which would be renamed the NSF Guidance on Financial Assistance (GFA) and reorganized into topic-based guides. As mentioned in the previous article, the draft would align NSF policies with proposed government-wide grant regulations from the Office of Management and Budget as well as several recent Executive Orders, introducing changes affecting grant administration, research security, scientific integrity, public access, and award oversight.
Among the proposed changes are requirements for immediate public access to NSF-funded publications and underlying datasets upon publication, expanded research security and disclosure requirements, new scientific integrity provisions tied to the Administration's Gold Standard Science initiative, and broader authority for NSF to modify, suspend, or terminate awards, including in cases involving changes in agency priorities. The draft also indicates that publication costs would be unallowable, although other sections continue to list certain publication-related expenses as allowable, creating an apparent inconsistency.
Comments are due August 24, 2026, and can be submitted through Regulations.gov (Docket No. NSF-2026-OTR-0001).
Court Rejects Use of Shifting Priorities to Cancel Federal Grants
A federal judge has ruled that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and federal agencies cannot terminate active grants solely because an administration’s priorities change after awards have been issued.
The July 17 decision by a U.S. District Court Judge found that the government’s use of a federal grant termination clause to cancel awards based on “program goals and agency priorities identified after grants were awarded” was not permitted under current regulations. The ruling followed a lawsuit filed by 23 states challenging the termination of thousands of grants, including research awards, since the start of the Trump Administration.
While the court affirmed that agencies retain authority to terminate grants under certain circumstances, it rejected the use of shifting policy priorities as a justification for canceling existing awards. The decision could provide a basis for institutions and researchers whose grants were terminated to seek reinstatement or other remedies. The Administration may appeal the ruling and has also pursued other approaches to ending funding, including declining to issue continuation awards for some projects.
FCC Approves Reflect Orbital Test Satellite Despite Scientific Concerns
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved Reflect Orbital's application to launch a demonstration satellite to test the company's concept of using a deployable orbital mirror to reflect sunlight onto shadowed areas of Earth. The demonstration is the first step toward the company's long-term vision of deploying a up to 50,000 mirror-bearing satellites capable of providing on-demand illumination.
In its decision, the FCC concluded that while it has authority over the satellite's communications systems, it lacks jurisdiction to regulate the mirror itself and therefore could not deny or condition the license based on concerns about reflected sunlight. The agency also determined that the demonstration serves the public interest by promoting technological innovation and that the potential harms identified by commenters were “unlikely to materialize from the operations of a single satellite.”
During the public comment period, AIBS joined numerous scientific organizations in urging the FCC to “deny the application, or at least require a thorough environmental impact assessment before any license is granted.” The organizations argued that intentionally reflecting sunlight from orbit could interfere with astronomical observations, increase light pollution, and disrupt nocturnal wildlife and ecological processes that depend on natural light-dark cycles.
Following the decision, the American Astronomical Society expressed disappointment, warning that the FCC's conclusion that it lacks authority to regulate the orbital reflector leaves important environmental and scientific impacts unaddressed. AAS also noted that the authorization does not require formal coordination with the National Science Foundation to protect federally funded astronomical facilities.
Register for the Writing for Impact and Influence Online Course
The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is offering its popular professional development program to help scientists and students hone their written communication skills to increase the power of their message.
Writing for Impact and Influence provides practical instruction and hands-on exercises that will improve the participant’s general writing proficiency. The program will provide participants with the skills and tools needed to compose scientific press releases, blog posts, memoranda, and more, with a focus on the reader experience and the appropriate use of modern writing tools, such as ChatGPT. Each product-oriented session will have an assignment (deadlines are flexible), with feedback from the instructor.
The course is interactive, and participants are encouraged to ask questions and exchange ideas with the instructor and other participants. Each session is also recorded and shared with all participants to accommodate scheduling conflicts.
Who Should Take the Course?
- Individuals interested in furthering their professional development by augmenting their writing skills.
- Graduate students and early-career professionals interested in increasing their marketability to employers.
- Individuals interested in more effectively informing and influencing segments of the public, supervisors, policymakers, reporters, organizational leaders, and others.
The course consists of six weekly 90-minute online modules conducted live and subsequently archived online for participant review. The course will begin on Friday, September 11, 2026, with subsequent course sessions held weekly on Fridays, through October 16. Individuals who actively participate in and complete the full course will receive a certificate recognizing that they have completed a nine-hour professional development course on business writing for scientists.
Learn more and register.
Short Takes
- Representatives Laura Gillen (D-NY) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) have sent a letter to OMB Director Russell Vought urging the Administration to reconsider proposed changes to federal grantmaking rules that they argue could politicize research funding decisions. The lawmakers warn that allowing political appointees to override merit-based review processes could undermine cancer research and other federally supported scientific efforts. The proposed rule drew nearly half a million public comments before the July 13 deadline (Read AIBS’ comments). An analysis by Tech Policy Press of the 54,000 comments that have been made publicly available found that 94 percent opposed the proposal, while fewer than 6 percent supported it.
- The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has finalized a rule ending the long-standing “duration of status” policy for international students. Beginning September 15, 2026, new student visa holders will generally be admitted for a fixed period tied to the length of their academic program, up to a maximum of four years, after which students needing additional time must apply for an extension or obtain a new visa. The rule is expected to affect many graduate students—particularly Ph.D. students, whose programs often exceed four years—and also shortens the grace period for departing the United States after completing a program from 60 days to 30 days.
- After redefining what it means to “harm” a protected species, the Trump Administration has finalized two additional changes to Endangered Species Act (ESA) regulations that could reduce protections for threatened species and give greater weight to economic considerations in critical habitat decisions. The new rules eliminate the long-standing “blanket 4(d) rule,” requiring species-specific protections for newly listed threatened species, and expand the factors the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may consider—including economic and national security impacts—when deciding whether to exclude areas from designated critical habitat.
- The Trump Administration has ended funding for dozens of ongoing research grants from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), affecting projects on topics including chronic disease management, kidney transplantation, and diagnostic delays. According to AcademyHealth, more than 70 grants representing approximately $185 million in previously committed funding have received “nonaward” notices, despite Congress appropriating funding for the agency this fiscal year. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) maintains that the grants were not terminated but were simply not awarded funding for their next budget period.
- The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has begun a new round of grant terminations, with at least one health disparities grant formally canceled and other terminations reportedly under consideration. According to Science, NIH recently terminated a grant studying the neurological effects of racial discrimination, stating that the project was not aligned with NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya's research priorities. In this case, the agency provided a more detailed justification following a federal court ruling that found its earlier blanket grant cancellations were unlawful. The termination may test whether the Administration's more individualized approach to ending grants can withstand further legal scrutiny.
- The Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the first 278 awards under its Genesis Mission, a major artificial intelligence initiative aimed at accelerating scientific discovery across fields ranging from nuclear energy to environmental science. More than 5,000 teams applied, resulting in a funding rate of less than 6%; most selected projects will receive $500,000 to $750,000 for a nine-month Phase I effort, after which a smaller number will compete for Phase II awards of up to $15 million. At the same time, the White House announced an expanded commitment of more than $5 billion for the broader Genesis initiative, which several federal science agencies—including NSF, NASA, and NIH—have said they intend to join.
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