In other words expertise, in the field, is regarded as the enemy and administrators, who are likely to have no aptitude in the field they are judging, are to be regarded as the ‘real’ experts.
It's not that they're regarded as experts. The 'senior political appointee' is just the reviewer of the grant put in front of them - and they can't defer to the experts!@##
How many 'senior political appointees' are there?
How many grant applications are submitted each year?
The programs that support science at two agencies I’ve won grants from in the past, NSF and NASA, are already announcing calls for proposals from which R1 universities are explicitly excluded. These programs were already underfunded; now they’re redirecting large parts of their budget to entities that are explicitly un[der]qualified. [I suspect that, like so much else with this administration, it is simply a grifting mechanism.] But even the more innocuous-sounding elements of this policy are poison, like not allowing page charges to scientific journals. Many, probably most, legitimate US science journals currently seen as top in the world are funded by page charges. This would destroy these established journals, so joint just no funding for science, but no place to publish science, no lasting repository of science. It is a cruelly calculated attempt to set us back 400 years.
Framing this policy as a "cruelly calculated", "poisonous", or "a grifting mechanism" ignores the actual catalyst behind it, and use of this type of language demonstrates the underlying problem.
This OMB action is a structural response to the perceived political and cultural biases currently undermining the credibility of our researchers and universities. When academic institutions and researchers trade factual scholarship for political goals, public trust breaks down. Instead of operating on suspicions, the scientific community needs to objectively and openly confront the risk of institutional and personal bias that made this proposed policy change come about in the first place.
For example, the jointly commissioned work from the chancellors of Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) concluded in June 2026 that academic fields are facing a systemic deterioration of standards due to the "substitution of political criteria for properly scholarly criteria". (https://www.vanderbilt.edu/principles/state-of-scholarship-report/)
But the proposed changes are all political and biased in nature. This policy literally includes specific politically charged subjects as persona non grata for any grants, and explicitly disallows whole sectors of research like equity sociological research
Not to mention that in this Framework grants are now solely political, since they explicitly must follow policy objectives and be approved solely by those politically appointed themselves, and any peer review or goal based method is either sidelines as advisory or entirely disallowed
You cannot complain that there is political bias in the scientific apparatus while simultaneously championing a policy that is 10 times more political in nature
This is a strange reaction. There are, in fact, other entities that do research (R2s, PUIs, and the like), and there is nothing wrong with supporting research at those institutions. As for the page charges, perhaps it's field-dependent, but there really needs to be a pushback against charging both the authors and the subscribers for an article (yes, I'm aware that sometimes page charges lead to open-access articles, but they don't always). There are certainly other places to publish, and those places will become more prominent as more people publish good work in them.
That’s a strange reaction. I’m not criticizing other entities that do research, I’m pointing out one way in which the government is sabotaging scientific research. That’s the real purpose of this change; don’t fool yourself that funds will flow to deserving entities this way.
As for finding a better way to fund journals, that’d be great. Doing so would require figuring out a new way through inquiry, engagement, and careful thought. Just halting the current funding mechanism is a prescription to destroy established journals, which is clearly the intent.
So, apparently, “gold standard science” will now mean whoever lines the MAGA dictator’s pockets with gold gets to define what is or isn’t science that merits federal support.
For anyone else who has difficulty locating the EO (it wasn’t posted yet in the lookup tool - as if I’d expect this administration to do their homework) here it is:
This proposed legislation chills me to the bone. As a former practicing scientist and current science communications professional, I take this effort personally and will fight it will all I’ve got 🤺
Also worth noting this sneaky little sentence that allows for the targeting of individual scientists based on e.g., social media posts, publications, commentary in the media, etc.
"OMB also proposes to add a provision that agencies may consider an applicant’s history of questionable practices based on publicly available and verifiable information".
In my opinion, it will take decades for scientific research to recover from the thousand cuts the Trump regime’s anti-science, anti-expertise has wrought. Research universities have had research funding pulled or threatened. Multi-year grants have been withdrawn mid-cycle. DOGE cut grants based on their warped AI searches looking for “DEI” words. Professors and graduate students lost funding. International students have had their visas pulled or have had difficulty obtaining them. Some have been detained or deported. Within governmental scientific agencies, scientists, staff, research stations, and funding have been cut. Regulations based on climate, environmental, health, social, and biological science have been loosened or eliminated. And now, the Office of Management and Budget has proposed new rules regarding grant funding that will lead to further destruction of scientific research in the US.
It still blows my mind that the military industrial complex is funded in centibillions whilst not passing an audit for 8 years. The US has been underfunding scientific research for decades, essentially handing over those billions to military contractors. The Pentagon spent $1billion in one day, on 9/30/26. Fraud, waste, and abuse on steroids.
The circus is the strategy. Cage matches, war posts, Kennedy Center spectacles; none of it is random noise. It is a carefully maintained fog machine designed to keep your eyes off the fire. The tragedy is that it works perfectly on a country that stopped teaching civics decades ago.
Grateful for this resource. While the piece is headed with an inoffensive half-smile from Vought, I recommend instead presenting an appropriate image of this fundamentally evil human.
A quick image search for "Russell Vought frown" will provide a plethora of image candidates that reflect his dark image for humanity's future (I suggest using one that depicts him looking right-to-left takes - disruptive to the western eye).
We are fighting for both the soul of America and the very survival of our species. Every action matters. Thanks again for this valuable report, which drills down to complement the general value of the Project 2025 Tracker (https://project2025.observer).
In other words expertise, in the field, is regarded as the enemy and administrators, who are likely to have no aptitude in the field they are judging, are to be regarded as the ‘real’ experts.
It's not that they're regarded as experts. The 'senior political appointee' is just the reviewer of the grant put in front of them - and they can't defer to the experts!@##
How many 'senior political appointees' are there?
How many grant applications are submitted each year?
The programs that support science at two agencies I’ve won grants from in the past, NSF and NASA, are already announcing calls for proposals from which R1 universities are explicitly excluded. These programs were already underfunded; now they’re redirecting large parts of their budget to entities that are explicitly un[der]qualified. [I suspect that, like so much else with this administration, it is simply a grifting mechanism.] But even the more innocuous-sounding elements of this policy are poison, like not allowing page charges to scientific journals. Many, probably most, legitimate US science journals currently seen as top in the world are funded by page charges. This would destroy these established journals, so joint just no funding for science, but no place to publish science, no lasting repository of science. It is a cruelly calculated attempt to set us back 400 years.
Framing this policy as a "cruelly calculated", "poisonous", or "a grifting mechanism" ignores the actual catalyst behind it, and use of this type of language demonstrates the underlying problem.
This OMB action is a structural response to the perceived political and cultural biases currently undermining the credibility of our researchers and universities. When academic institutions and researchers trade factual scholarship for political goals, public trust breaks down. Instead of operating on suspicions, the scientific community needs to objectively and openly confront the risk of institutional and personal bias that made this proposed policy change come about in the first place.
For example, the jointly commissioned work from the chancellors of Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) concluded in June 2026 that academic fields are facing a systemic deterioration of standards due to the "substitution of political criteria for properly scholarly criteria". (https://www.vanderbilt.edu/principles/state-of-scholarship-report/)
But the proposed changes are all political and biased in nature. This policy literally includes specific politically charged subjects as persona non grata for any grants, and explicitly disallows whole sectors of research like equity sociological research
Not to mention that in this Framework grants are now solely political, since they explicitly must follow policy objectives and be approved solely by those politically appointed themselves, and any peer review or goal based method is either sidelines as advisory or entirely disallowed
You cannot complain that there is political bias in the scientific apparatus while simultaneously championing a policy that is 10 times more political in nature
This is a strange reaction. There are, in fact, other entities that do research (R2s, PUIs, and the like), and there is nothing wrong with supporting research at those institutions. As for the page charges, perhaps it's field-dependent, but there really needs to be a pushback against charging both the authors and the subscribers for an article (yes, I'm aware that sometimes page charges lead to open-access articles, but they don't always). There are certainly other places to publish, and those places will become more prominent as more people publish good work in them.
That’s a strange reaction. I’m not criticizing other entities that do research, I’m pointing out one way in which the government is sabotaging scientific research. That’s the real purpose of this change; don’t fool yourself that funds will flow to deserving entities this way.
As for finding a better way to fund journals, that’d be great. Doing so would require figuring out a new way through inquiry, engagement, and careful thought. Just halting the current funding mechanism is a prescription to destroy established journals, which is clearly the intent.
So, apparently, “gold standard science” will now mean whoever lines the MAGA dictator’s pockets with gold gets to define what is or isn’t science that merits federal support.
For anyone else who has difficulty locating the EO (it wasn’t posted yet in the lookup tool - as if I’d expect this administration to do their homework) here it is:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/restoring-gold-standard-science/
This proposed legislation chills me to the bone. As a former practicing scientist and current science communications professional, I take this effort personally and will fight it will all I’ve got 🤺
Also worth noting this sneaky little sentence that allows for the targeting of individual scientists based on e.g., social media posts, publications, commentary in the media, etc.
"OMB also proposes to add a provision that agencies may consider an applicant’s history of questionable practices based on publicly available and verifiable information".
Big brother is watching? YIKES! Absolutely NOT the American way.
In my opinion, it will take decades for scientific research to recover from the thousand cuts the Trump regime’s anti-science, anti-expertise has wrought. Research universities have had research funding pulled or threatened. Multi-year grants have been withdrawn mid-cycle. DOGE cut grants based on their warped AI searches looking for “DEI” words. Professors and graduate students lost funding. International students have had their visas pulled or have had difficulty obtaining them. Some have been detained or deported. Within governmental scientific agencies, scientists, staff, research stations, and funding have been cut. Regulations based on climate, environmental, health, social, and biological science have been loosened or eliminated. And now, the Office of Management and Budget has proposed new rules regarding grant funding that will lead to further destruction of scientific research in the US.
It still blows my mind that the military industrial complex is funded in centibillions whilst not passing an audit for 8 years. The US has been underfunding scientific research for decades, essentially handing over those billions to military contractors. The Pentagon spent $1billion in one day, on 9/30/26. Fraud, waste, and abuse on steroids.
Well, this is horrible. Thank you for raising its profile out of obscurity.
Its Lysenko in America. Truly frightening!
thank you for getting this out there
Thank you for making us aware!! This is very bad.
Thank you so much for this summary that is making the proposal much more accessible to the science (and broader) community.
Wow. I can think a fellow in Russia, one not friendly to the United States, who is clapping his hands in glee right now.
Welcome to the Soviet model of research “support.”
The circus is the strategy. Cage matches, war posts, Kennedy Center spectacles; none of it is random noise. It is a carefully maintained fog machine designed to keep your eyes off the fire. The tragedy is that it works perfectly on a country that stopped teaching civics decades ago.
Grateful for this resource. While the piece is headed with an inoffensive half-smile from Vought, I recommend instead presenting an appropriate image of this fundamentally evil human.
A quick image search for "Russell Vought frown" will provide a plethora of image candidates that reflect his dark image for humanity's future (I suggest using one that depicts him looking right-to-left takes - disruptive to the western eye).
We are fighting for both the soul of America and the very survival of our species. Every action matters. Thanks again for this valuable report, which drills down to complement the general value of the Project 2025 Tracker (https://project2025.observer).