Science policy this week: Feb. 17, 2025

What’s Ahead

An empty lab at the National Institutes of Health.

NIH

Mass firings begin across science agencies

Thousands of science agency employees have been fired by the Trump administration since last Friday as part of a purge of probationary workers across the government. The number of people fired include more than 1,000 at the Department of Energy, around 1,200 at the National Institutes of Health, nearly 170 at the National Science Foundation, and unclear numbers at other science agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey. The news outlet Government Executive is compiling reports of firings across agencies.

Unions representing federal employees have sued in an attempt to block the firings. Although probationary employees have fewer civil service protections, the unions argue the sweeping nature of the layoffs lacks proper justification. The probationary period generally lasts a year or two after starting the role but can sometimes last longer. Many probationary employees are new to government service but some are more senior workers who transitioned into new roles.

Congressional Democrats have condemned the scale of firings and the haphazard way the administration has conducted them. For instance, the administration fired around 300 employees of DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration apparently without realizing the scope of their duties and then frantically attempted to rehire most of them. NNSA ultimately rescinded all but 28 of the firings, according to the AP.

The firings are part of large-scale reductions in force (RIFs) that agencies are preparing in response to a Feb. 11 executive order. For instance, NASA has put out a directive describing its RIF planning. Agencies have also been roiled by firings and resignations of senior employees. At NIH, the agency’s deputy director and the head of its extramural research arm both abruptly resigned last week and the administration fired the head of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.

Congress to continue probing research security at national labs

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing Thursday on mitigating research security risks posed by foreign nationals at the Department of Energy’s national labs. The witnesses are Paul Dabbar, who served as DOE’s under secretary for science during President Donald Trump’s first administration; Geri Richmond, who served in the position under Biden; and Anna Puglisi, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution specializing in national security and China’s science and technology development.

DOE has been tightening its research security policies in recent years in response to directives from Congress, including by instituting a new risk review process last December that applies to all grants. DOE is also in the process of implementing a law enacted last year that generally prohibits citizens of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from accessing non-public areas of DOE’s national security labs beginning April 15, with waivers permitted in certain situations. This was a pared-down version of a proposal advanced by the Senate Intelligence Committee that would have applied to all DOE national labs. National lab directors testified about the implementation of the prohibition at a hearing last week held by the House Science Committee.

Republicans renew effort to expand regulation of universities’ foreign ties

On a 20 to 14 vote last week, the House Education and Workforce Committee advanced the DETERRENT Act, reviving legislation from the previous Congress that would require universities to secure waivers from the Department of Education to begin or continue contracts with “countries of concern,” defined as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The bill would also lower minimum reporting thresholds from $250,000 to $50,000 for funding from most countries and to $0 for funding from countries of concern. It would also require certain institutions to create public databases detailing their investments in countries or foreign entities of concern as well as foreign gifts and contracts held by research faculty and staff. Committee Republicans argued the legislation is needed to limit foreign influence over the higher education sector while Democrats on the panel argued the bill takes an overly broad approach that would harm beneficial international partnerships.

Higher education associations have argued the bill would have a chilling effect on international collaboration and would overwhelm the Education Department, stating, for instance, that the bill’s definition of a contract would capture all research agreements, student exchange programs, and other joint cultural and education programs with Chinese institutions. Furthermore, the associations argued the department lacks the technical expertise needed to assess risks associated with scientific research and emerging technologies and suggested the new rules would be redundant because federal research agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have recently updated their reporting requirements for research security and foreign partnerships.

Cruz presses case against DEI in NSF grants

Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX) released a list last week of more than 3,400 National Science Foundation grants that he views as promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion or advancing “neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda,” elaborating on a report he issued last fall. The list covers grants awarded during the Biden administration and amounts to roughly $2 billion. Many of the grants appear to have been flagged because of references to public outreach and workforce diversity efforts in the project abstracts, which are responsive to the agency’s “broader impacts” grant review criteria. NSF itself and NIH are currently doing similar keyword searches of their grants in response to President Donald Trump’s executive orders, including his DEI ban. Democrats have criticized the methodology of Cruz’s study, arguing that its broad use of keyword searches leads to misleading results.

Also on our radar

The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday on increasing commercial access to spectrum.
The National Academies will release a decadal survey of ocean sciences Thursday.
The Carnegie Foundation released a new classification methodology last week that defines the top tier of research institutions as those that spend at least $50 million annually for research and award 70 or more research doctorates each year. With the change, Howard University became the first historically Black university to achieve this status, known as R1.
The U.S. and India announced research partnerships covering AI, semiconductors, quantum, biotechnology, energy, and space last week as part of a meeting between the countries’ presidents.