Showing posts with label government funding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government funding. Show all posts

Sunday, September 21, 2025

The 2025 Golden Goose awards

 In these difficult times for science funding, the Golden Goose Award is a reminder of its benefits.

 Here's it's backstory

Here are the 2025 winners

“Nature has all the answers”

How a knack for nature’s oddities improved disease diagnostics & inspired scores of scientists

AWARDEE: Joseph G. Gall 

FEDERAL FUNDING AGENCIES: National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation 

 and

Cisplatin Breakthrough Redefines Testicular Cancer Treatment 

 AWARDEES: Barnett Rosenberg, Loretta VanCamp, Thomas Krigas 

FEDERAL FUNDING AGENCIES: National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation 

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 Here are all my posts on the Golden Goose.  (Two of the early awards were for market design:)

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Stanford celebrates the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (and recalls university-government collaboration on science)

 Remember when universities and the Federal government collaborated on big science?

The bold bet that built a telescope

"When the first images from the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory were released on June 23, they marked a historic milestone for the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), a landmark 10-year campaign to map the southern sky with the world’s largest digital camera, set to begin full science operations later this year. 

"Today, Rubin is an $800 million observatory backed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE). But two decades ago, it was little more than a vision without funding, a home, or agency support.

"That changed in 2003, when Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory jointly launched the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), setting in motion a chain of events that helped bring the LSST to life." 

 

Image of members of the team preparing the LSST Camera for installation.
the digital camera...


Saturday, May 10, 2025

NSF slashed again

The "S" in NSF has again attracted the attention of the Trump administration.

 The journal Science reports the story: 

 NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions
Changes seen as a response to presidential directives on what research to fund
By Jeffrey Mervis

"The National Science Foundation (NSF), already battered by White House directives and staff reductions, is plunging into deeper turmoil. According to sources who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, staff were told today that the agency’s 37 divisions—across all eight NSF directorates—are being abolished and the number of programs within those divisions will be drastically reduced. The current directors and deputy directors will lose their titles and might be reassigned to other positions at the agency or elsewhere in the federal government.

The consolidation appears to be driven in part by President Donald Trump’s proposal to cut the agency’s $4 billion budget by 55% for the 2026 fiscal year that begins on 1 October. NSF’s decision to abolish its divisions could also be part of a larger restructuring of the agency’s grantmaking process that involves adding a new layer of review. NSF watchers fear that a smaller, restructured agency could be more vulnerable to pressure from the White House to fund research that suits its ideological bent.

As soon as this evening, NSF is also expected to send layoff notices to an unspecified number of its 1700-member staff. ... The agency is also expected to issue another round of notices tomorrow terminating grants that have already been awarded, sources say. In the past 3 weeks, the agency has pulled the plug on almost 1400 grants worth more than $1 billion."


Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Presidential memo shuts down all government grants (now including NSF)

 A Presidential memo issued yesterday is shutting down all government grants, including e.g. those from the NSF.  

Here's the memo:

MEMORANDUM FOR HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
FROM: Matthew J. Vaeth, Acting Director, Office of Management and Budget
SUBJECT: Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs 

" The use of Federal resources to advance  Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of  taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve. "

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Here's the story from NPR:

National Science Foundation freezes grant review in response to Trump executive orders, By Jonathan Lambert January 27, 2025 

"The National Science Foundation canceled all of its grant review panels this week, as the organization works to align its grantmaking process with new executive orders from the Trump administration. 

...

"More than 60 of those meetings were scheduled for this week, all of which were abruptly canceled Monday morning."

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And here's a broader view from the Washington Post:

White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion. Trillions of dollars could be on hold, according to an Office of Management and Budget memo. By Jeff Stein, Jacob Bogage and Emily Davies, January 27, 2025

 "The White House budget office is ordering a pause to all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government, according to an internal memo sent to agencies Monday, creating significant confusion across Washington.

"In a two-page document, Matthew J. Vaeth, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, instructs federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance.” The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, also calls for each agency to perform a “comprehensive analysis” to ensure its grant and loan programs are consistent with President Donald Trump’s executive orders, which aimed to ban federal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and limit clean energy spending, among other measures.

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And here's the view from Science:

Trump’s shutdown of federal diversity office at NSF breaks law that created it. CHIPS and Science Act established position to broaden participation in science  ByJeffrey Mervis

"President Donald Trump’s order yesterday shutting down diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices was part of a slew of presidential directives from the new administration that apply to every federal agency. But for the National Science Foundation (NSF), following the White House’s order required it to ignore a mandate from Congress, and the lawmakers behind it are ticked off.

“Trump’s dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts across the federal government is just plain wrong,” said the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’s science committee, Representative Zoe Lofgren (CA). “For years, the committee has been working in a bipartisan effort to create a STEM workforce that more accurately represents the rich diversity and intellectual capacity of our nation. Trump has made hypocrites of the Republicans who joined us in spearheading diversity and equity efforts.”

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   "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
    "Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
    "Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
    "Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

    —Martin Niemöller
 


Sunday, January 19, 2025

Career and volunteer firefighters are both common

 The Mercury News has the story:

 

Where did all the Bay Area volunteer firefighters go?
Civilian volunteer firefighters used to be a staple of fire stations across Northern California. Today, few remain
.  By Chase Hunter 

"Nationally, about seven in 10 fire personnel are volunteers, according to the National Fire Department Registry. These volunteers are largely confined to Midwest and East Coast states, Mokhtarian said, where fire risk poses a significantly lower threat and communities are not as flush with tax dollars as in the Bay Area."

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The career firefighters referred to above are local government employees.  As noted earlier in connection with the fires in Los Angeles, there are also private fire fighting services:

Monday, January 13, 2025  Are private firefighters repugnant (in Los Angeles)?