Exclusive: NSF puts new research grants to top universities on hold

Princeton University in New Jersey (its science library shown here) is one of four institutions to which the US National Science Foundation began restricting research grants last month. Credit: EQRoy/Alamy The US National Science Foundation (NSF) — a major funder of basic research — has restricted the flow of new research grants to a group of elite universities, Nature has learnt. Entire NSF science advisory board fired by Trump administration Internal agency documents obtained by Nature’s news team reveal that on 9 April, the NSF’s Office of Award Management (OAM), which finalizes grants and handles their finances, put limits on new funding to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina; Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Princeton University in New Jersey; and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. A note applied to these universities in an NSF database reads: “Future Awards to Organization on Hold.” Since then, little fresh funding has been made available to these institutions by the NSF. It is unclear why the NSF, which has an annual budget of US$8.8 billion, is limiting new funding to these particular universities or when the restriction will end. The agency declined a request for comment from Nature . Last year, the administration of US President Donald Trump froze or terminated research funding for several US institutions , alleging violations of federal anti-discrimination policy, such as a failure to protect students against antisemitism. …