April 24th, 2025
Dear Colleagues,
Last Friday the National Science Foundation released a new statement to announce the termination of awards that are "not aligned with agency priorities." At this time, the impacts to our active awards are fairly small in number and we are actively engaged with PIs from impacted projects. We, along with our national partner organizations, are closely monitoring for any legal action that may impact the termination of NSF awards related to this announcement.
NSF has also released a set of FAQs on how the agency is now advising investigators to address broadening participation activities under the Broader Impacts criteria. Specifically, they reference focusing on six areas by the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 when developing broader impacts goals:
- increasing US economic competitiveness;
- advancing public health and welfare;
- supporting national defense;
- enhancing academia and industry partnerships;
- enhancing the STEM education system; and
- improving public science literacy.
The seventh area, expanding participation of women and underrepresented groups in STEM, is discussed separately, with an emphasis that investigators wishing to address this goal "must ensure that all outreach, recruitment, or participatory activities in NSF projects are open and available to all Americans."
If you have an active award or pending proposal and receive any communications from NSF, including your program officer, we ask that you reach out to us immediately.