Eric Boodman

@ericboodman.bsky.social

2685 Followers 225 Following

Journalist writing narrative features for @statnews.bsky.social and occasional essays elsewhere.

Screenshot of this paragraph: "“I’ve always believed we were working, in a slow, mostly linear process, toward more democratization in the world,” she said. “My work on consensus building has largely assumed people engaged in that process would be living in democratic societies, and that’s not a fair assumption anymore.” In March, a Swedish research institute released its annual report finding that for the first time in decades, there are now more people living in autocracies than democracies."
Screenshot of text from Nature article that reads: "Around 10,000 research grants have been flagged for review and distributed to various programme directors. Grants in one area of science are being distributed to directors in a separate area of science. For instance, the geosciences division is examining grants from the division of social, behavioural and economic sciences. The grants are being reviewed independently by two staff members instructed to indicate any potential violations of Trump's orders. They will submit their reviews in a spreadsheet by 5 p.m. today. Nature has seen the criteria for flagging grants, which call for programme officers to look for "broadening participation" language, foreign assistance, climate science, domestic energy, and "discriminatory programs, including illegal DEl". "To see 'women' and 'woman' and 'people of colour' showing up on a spreadsheet over and over and over and over — that was a gut punch," says one NSF employee. Action for grants can include cancelling, archiving or modifying them, with a deadline of 7 February. A team of five to eight NSF staff members will then review any revised grants, which will on to the Office of the Director for approval."
Screenshot from the NSF website with text that reads: "7. How does the TRO impact the award reviews NSF was conducting? The TRO does not impact the ongoing review of our award portfolio to identify active grants in the context of recent Executive Orders. We will continue the comprehensive review of our award portfolio."
Screenshot of NSF website displaying text that says, "8. Can NSF terminate my award even if they are still reviewing all awards? NSF can not take action to delay or stop payment for active awards based solely on actual or potential non-compliance with the Executive Orders. However, the TRO reserves the agency's right to take action for reasons not related to compliance with the executive orders, such as violations of law, regulation, or current NSF grant terms and conditions."
Screenshot from NSF website that includes the text: "NSF executed a shut down of ACM$ last week due to extraordinarily high volumes of payments received after OMB Memorandum M-24-13 was released, which resulted in a cancellation of all payment requested received on January 28"
Screenshot of text that says: "The Award Cash Management Service (ACM$) is temporarily unavailable beginning Tuesday January 28, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. EST, while NSF performs a comprehensive review of the award portfolio to ensure compliance with recent Executive Orders, pursuant to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum M-25-13, issued on January 27, 2025. Therefore, all payments under active awards will be paused as the agency conducts the required reviews and analysis. NSF has created an Executive Order Implementation webpage https://new.nsf.gov/executive-orders to ensure the widest dissemination of information and updates. We will continue to communicate with you as we receiv additional guidance.