Warren, Markey Slam Trump’s Science Funding Cuts, Highlights Threats to Research and Innovation
Senators concerned by Administration's false claims of progress highlight over 250 NSF grants that have been canceled across Massachusetts.
“We urge you to work with the NSF and the White House to reverse the Trump Administration’s budget cuts and the chaos the administration has created.”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), detailing their concerns with the ongoing chaos and upheaval at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and its impact on the future of scientific research and innovation across the United States and the hundreds of thousands of students, postdocs, and faculty in Massachusetts who depend on federal science funding.
“As the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Science Advisor to President Trump, you are charged with ‘empowering researchers to achieve groundbreaking discoveries’ and safeguarding U.S. leadership in science,” wrote the senators. “Therefore, we write to seek answers regarding why the Trump administration has led the agency into such disarray.”
On February 12, 2025, the senators wrote to the NSF inquiring about the decision-making process for the recent disruptions to grant funding and highlighting their impact on research institutions in Massachusetts. In response, NSF told the senators, “The agency has not stopped working; in fact, we have continued to make significant progress over the past few weeks.”
But since the beginning of the Trump Administration, the NSF appears to have awarded fewer new grants than in any of the five preceding years and recently announced that it would be returning all approved grant proposals back to the review stage, terminating more than 1,400 existing grants, freezing all new grant funding actions “until further notice,” and capping the percentage of NSF grants that institutions are able to spend on administrative and operational costs like facilities and equipment costs at 15 percent. Amidst all of this, on April 24, 2025, NSF Director Panchanathan abruptly stepped down, leaving the agency without a leader or clear direction.
A federal judge issued an order to the NSF stopping the agency from freezing, blocking, or terminating grants, calling such actions “unlawful.” However, reports indicate that the NSF has significantly cut back on funding and awards activity—in what appears to be defiance of court orders—reversing years of progress and endangering the nation’s scientific future.
Over 250 grants have been canceled across Massachusetts, with research institutions scrambling to support students who have lost NSF funding and beginning to reduce incoming class sizes for certain scientific programs by 50% due to funding cuts, pauses, and uncertainty.
More upheaval continues to plague the NSF, with Director Panchanathan unexpectedly stepping down, leaving the agency currently leaderless and without a clear future. Reports suggest that Panchanathan’s departure may have been triggered by impending budget and staff reductions at the recommendation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), making working for the NSF untenable. If the reports are accurate, the departure represents a clear rebuke of the Trump Administration’s approach to the U.S. science enterprise.
“Given the critical importance of NSF funding to scientific progress in Massachusetts and across the country, we urge you to work with the NSF and the White House to reverse the Trump Administration’s budget cuts and the chaos the administration has created,” concluded the senators.
Due to the troubling reports about the status of the grant review and funding process at the NSF and the impacts these disruptions have on researchers who depend on federal science funding, the senators demand a response by June 3, 2025.
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