On Thursday, the Trump administration issued an executive order asserting political control over grant funding, including all federally supported research. The order requires that any announcement of funding opportunities be reviewed by the head of the agency or someone they designate, which means a political appointee will have the ultimate say over what areas of science the US funds. Individual grants will also require clearance from a political appointee and "must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities."
The order also instructs agencies to formalize the ability to cancel previously awarded grants at any time if they're considered to "no longer advance agency priorities." Until a system is in place to enforce the new rules, agencies are forbidden from starting new funding programs.
In short, the new rules would mean that all federal science research would need to be approved by a political appointee who may have no expertise in the relevant areas, and the research can be canceled at any time if the political winds change. It would mark the end of a system that has enabled US scientific leadership for roughly 70 years.
We’re in control
The text of the executive order recycles prior accusations the administration has used to justify attacks on the US scientific endeavor: Too much money goes to pay for the facilities and administrative staff that universities provide researchers; grants have gone to efforts to diversify the scientific community; some studies can't be replicated; and there have been instances of scientific fraud. Its "solution" to these problems (some of which are real), however, is greater control of the grant-making process by non-expert staff appointed by the president.
In general, the executive order inserts a layer of political control over both the announcement of new funding opportunities and the approval of individual grants. It orders the head of every agency that issues grants—meaning someone appointed by the president—to either make funding decisions themselves, or to designate another senior appointee to do it on their behalf. That individual will then exert control over whether any funding announcements or grants can move forward. Decisions will also require "continuation of existing coordination with OMB [Office of Management and Budget]." The head of OMB, Russell Vought, has been heavily involved in trying to cut science funding, including a recent attempt to block all grants made by the National Institutes of Health.
What sorts of political litmus tests will these appointees apply to science funding? As mentioned above, they'll need to be consistent with the president's agenda and can't promote "anti-American values." The order also doesn't want any funding for grants that suggest that sex isn't binary, even though it is clearly not. Presumably, researchers who work on the hermaphroditic worm C. elegans are out of luck. Research institutions with lower facility costs—which will typically mean rural ones—will be favored for funding, which appears to be OMB trying to accomplish a previous goal that was blocked by the courts.
Another expectation? That grants will go to people who adhere to the administration's vision of "gold standard science," something the administration itself has abandoned when it was inconvenient.
An optimistic view would be that the panels of experts that evaluate grants will end up being left with the final say over funding. However, the order specifically calls on appointees not to defer to peer review. "Senior appointees and their designees shall not ministerially ratify or routinely defer to the recommendations of others in reviewing funding opportunity announcements or discretionary awards, but shall instead use their independent judgment," it reads. "Nothing in this order shall be construed to discourage or prevent the use of peer review methods to evaluate proposals for discretionary awards or otherwise inform agency decision making, provided that peer review recommendations remain advisory and are not ministerially ratified, routinely deferred to, or otherwise treated as de facto binding by senior appointees or their designees."
Prior funding at risk
All funding agencies are forbidden from starting any new grant funding programs until the system for exerting political control over the research is in place. The order also requires agencies to take political control of past funding.
The actual process of distributing funds to labs is called grant "drawdown," and the order requires the funding agency to explicitly approve any drawdown. That approval will now require any researcher to essentially rejustify the existence of their grant any time they want money, with agencies requiring "grantees to provide written explanations or support, with specificity, for requests for each drawdown." The explosion of paperwork that this will require is somewhat ironic, given that the order is claiming to be (in part) about making research spending more efficient.
Should the agency not feel that any grant is justified, they'll simply be allowed to unilaterally terminate it. "Each agency head shall, to the maximum extent permitted by law and consistent with relevant Executive Orders or other Presidential directives," it reads, "take steps to revise the terms and conditions of existing discretionary grants to permit immediate termination for convenience, or clarify that such termination is permitted, including if the award no longer advances agency priorities or the national interest."
It has been clear for a while that the administration is committed to adding ideological litmus tests to science and slashing research funding. However, Congress has shown indications that it doesn't intend to go along with the cuts. This appears to be the administration's response to Congress: An attempt to place a major roadblock to any new funding and establish the structure that will formally exert the ideological control that it wants.
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