Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

science.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 877 posts

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#71

Post by SubiculumCode »

hdivider wrote: post #16

"In the new structure, even if a revised proposal gets the green light from a division director, a new body whose membership has not been determined will take a fresh look to ensure it conforms to the agency’s new standard for making awards." I wonder if doge is using ML systems to do this kind of review in a far more centralized way across all of government. With the kind of data they have -- obtained by extra-legal…

I've heard rumors of Grok being used to monitor NIH program officers and the study sessionsnwhere grants get peer reviewed.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#72

Post by alabastervlog »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #57

Hmm the budget is supposed to be approved by congress is it not? Trump can certainly tell people what he thinks the funding should be, but until a budget is voted through it is not final? Or does this agency fall under the White House direct financing of some sort?

He's been blatantly violating a bunch of laws, including impoundment, basically non-stop since taking office.

Turns out laws are fake, you can just do whatever.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#73

Post by damnitbuilds »

arrosenberg wrote: post #67
damnitbuilds wrote: post #44

[flagged]

How do you figure? If they simply changed the grant writing process back to what it was before Biden, that argument would make sense. Cutting back funding and approvals wholesale points to a more nefarious know-nothing attitude toward research.

I agree. Read more carefully what I wrote.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#75

Post by tachim »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #68

Having employees of academic institutions doing the vetting sounds like it could easily evolve into a conflict of interest. "" The initial vetting is handled by hundreds of program officers, all experts in their field and some of whom are on temporary leave from academic positions. ""

Conflicts of interest are taken extremely seriously at the NSF; much more so than at private funding organizations. You can't come within a mile of reviewing grant applications from researchers at your institution, or researchers you have been affiliated with in the past.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#76

Post by timschmidt »

dingnuts wrote: post #33
iandanforth wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are, at best, doing both. But more honestly they are attacking scientific institutions because they are perceived as liberal.

when in fact scientific research is in the interest of Defense, especially NOAA. I'm sure the Air Force will appreciate degraded forecast capability. doesn't even make sense within the normal Republican playbook

NOAA is a civilian agency. Military has https://www.metoc.navy.mil/

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#78

Post by jimmar »

In 2023, the NSF said it gave 9,400 research awards at an average of $239,700 each [1]. That's $2.25 billion. That year, the NSF has a budget of $10.5 billion [2]. Can somebody with more insight into the NSF explain where the NSF money goes?

My PhD was largely funded through government grants, though not the NSF. To put it mildly, our government contacts were not the most competent people and were frequently roadblocks rather than enablers. There were many opportunities to streamline processes that would help researchers spend more time researching and less time on bureaucratic overhead.

[1] https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/04_fy2025.pdf?Versio...

[2] https://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2023/appropriations

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#79

Post by SubiculumCode »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #68

Having employees of academic institutions doing the vetting sounds like it could easily evolve into a conflict of interest. "" The initial vetting is handled by hundreds of program officers, all experts in their field and some of whom are on temporary leave from academic positions. ""

At NIH, and I assume NSF, there is extensive effort to avoid and prevent conflicts of interest in study sections.

Re: NSF faces shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions

#80

Post by estebarb »

DiffEq wrote: post #31
frob wrote: post #11

The NSF funded my graduate research. It feels like someone is going through my past and burning all of the ladders that helped me grow and succeed.

[flagged]

Thousands of years ago there was a breakthrough discovery that shaped humanity forever: living in society.

Do we need to explain that one of the perks of society is pushing others forward with a tacit expectation that it will come back for everyone eventually?

Post reply on HN