Time to Save the National Science Foundation, 75 Years and Thriving

The National Science Foundation marks its 75th anniversary today, May 10th 2025. Rather than celebrate, it's time to save it.

For 75 years, NSF has helped promote scientific progress, advance health and prosperity, and secure the national defense. The Trump administration has a different set of values. On the celebration’s eve, Science Magazine reported ongoing efforts by the administration to abolish divisions, cut programs, and demote and fire staff. The Trump administration is intent on undermining a thriving scientific and medical research ecosystem that is (and still could be) the envy of the world.

75 years of the NSF. Take action at savensf.com

The irony is that NSF should and does have bipartisan support. On Friday May 9^th, Rep. Brian Babin, a Republican representing Texas’ 36^th House District and Chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology and Research and Technology Subchairman Rep. Jay Obernolte a Republican representing California’s 23^rd district, issued a statement celebrating NSF’s 75 years of innovation, discovery, development, and economic impact. In their words:

“NSF investments have driven groundbreaking innovations, from the internet and LASIK eye surgery to the first image of a black hole captured by the Event Horizon Telescope. The foundation has also played a key role in the work of 268 Nobel Prize laureates, helping to shape many of their landmark achievements.”

Their statement highlights “how strategic investments, despite NSF’s relatively modest budget, have delivered remarkable returns for American society.”

Rep. Babin and Rep. Obernolte are correct. But statements of praise mean little when strategic divestments are taking place that destroy our nation’s capacity to remain a world leader in the broad portfolio of science required to address global challenges, from emerging epidemics, to threats of antibiotic resistance, to clean energy, climate change, AI, robotics, quantum science, and advanced manufacturing. Reaping the fruits of research requires a long-term investment. New paradigms and products don’t appear overnight. They involve decades of work, require collaborative teams, expert feedback, and sustained support. The output has been wildly profitable and ongoing cuts take a myopic view of what should be supported.

In related reporting, Science Magazine describes a plan to close NSF’s existing divisions that are presently organized around scientific topic areas. Instead, NSF’s proposed work going forward will apparently focus on one of five clustered areas: artificial intelligence, quantum information science, biotechnology, nuclear energy, and translational science. These are important, and investments in each of these areas are likely to yield technological and economic benefits. But the challenges we face are far more expansive. Narrowing NSF’s portfolio will certainly mean we miss out on opportunities to advance new frontiers.

As just one example, in 1994 the NSF led a multi-agency effort to fund programs in ‘Digital Libraries’ – one of the grants went to Stanford University. There, a pair of graduate students began to work on organizing (i.e., ‘ranking’) the importance of websites based on their connectivity. Together Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed the PageRank algorithm and a few years later founded Google, Inc. At the time, NSF and allied agencies invested $24 million in this nascent digital libraries initiative. Today, Alphabet, Inc. is worth over $1.8 trillion dollars. Current NSF budgets are approximately $9B-$10B/yr. Seems like a good return on investment.

Would the Trump administration fund a digital library initiative now? It is hard to imagine. Instead, they have launched systematic attacks on the independence of higher education and its ability to conduct research that could (if given the opportunity) improve our health, well-being, and economy. The NSF is the centerpiece of that basic research infrastructure ecosystem. Politicizing it and narrowing the scope of its mission by taking power from experts and handing it to administrative lackeys will lead to lost opportunity and poor outcomes.

As it stands, teams of scientists embedded in public and private research universities nationwide compete for federal support. These research awards are not gifts, instead scientists work intensively to propose projects in highly competitive review processes in which the federal government agrees to pay for services that research universities are in a unique position to provide. Basic research is meant to take risks that private companies do not. The American public understands that not every investment will pay off immediately – but some will, far beyond our capacity to imagine.

The NSF has thrived by supporting a diversified portfolio that spans the life, earth and physical sciences, computing, engineering, social, behavioral and economic sciences, STEM education, technology development, and more. By narrowly prioritizing 5 technology-focused areas, we guarantee to miss out on discoveries that help understand our world, each other, and (in some cases) spur an entirely new sector of the American economy. And in our withdrawal, the Trump administration will cede leadership in science and technology to others.

The attacks on NSF are also personal. The start of my career was made possible, in part, by a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in ‘Interdisciplinary Informatics’. How many working scientists owe the start of their careers to a graduate fellowship, postdoctoral fellowship, dissertation improvement grant, workshop or small grant that provided them the time and space to explore, invent, and innovate?

Precisely so, the 75^th anniversary of NSF should have been a moment of celebration of the products of investment and, equally importantly, to give thanks to sustained taxpayer investment. These investments are ongoing, pulling the plug on science will leave us in the dark. The expert program directors and staff at NSF have made an intentional decision to work in the nation’s service and interests. Firing people, dismantling programs, and narrowly prioritizing technology without supporting the deeper roots of science won’t save Americans money, but it will risk our future.

Take action: go to https://www.savensf.com/nsf-at-75-toolkit to find out ways to take action and get the word out to your elected officials.