Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Context: In my role as division director of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) at NSF, I’m sending out a short message to the IIS mailing list on the Second Tuesday Every (Almost) Month (STE(A)M). This is the installment for April 2025.
Oh, hey.
It’s been a minute. How’s everybody doing? Since there has been a lot of speculation out there about what’s up at NSF and I’ve been quiet for a few months, I wanted to use this month's STEM message to try to speak to some rumors that I've heard circulating.
Michael is no longer as the NSF. Not so. (See the “from” line above.) Although my departure was announced a while back, I'll be finishing up here during the first week of July. I'm around a few more months and hope to get a lot done in the time I have left.
NSF cannot hire a replacement for Michael. That's true, at least for now. There's a hiring freeze across the government and we are being told that IPA positions like mine won't be filled until the beginning of 2026 at the earliest. It is likely that IIS's Deputy Division Director Wendy Nilsen will serve as Acting Division Director until a successor can be put in place. (Thanks, Wendy. Sorry, Wendy.)
IIS is being eliminated. No. It is true that the IIS division director position announcement was taken down, but that's because of the hiring freeze. (See previous bullet.) NSF is open to various kinds of reorganizations, but there are no plans in place to get rid of IIS.
All CISE divisions are being eliminated. No. (See previous bullet.) It’s worth keeping in mind that NSF has a culture of consensus-based decision-making. As such, lots of ideas get discussed “pre-decisionally” and debated and that doesn’t mean they will be acted on. It’s important to think through possible futures together. That said, we are always looking at ways to be more efficient and align with the needs of the community. Thus, a change is not out of the question.
IIS has stopped approving projects for funding. False. Our approval pipeline has slowed as we are being very careful and deliberate because our actions are prescribed by a collection of government rules and we're making sure we stay aligned with them even as they shift. But we're holding panels, making funding decisions, and issuing approvals (and declines, I'm afraid).
NSF has rehired experts. Actually, no. I saw this item in an article in the New York Times, but I think it's actually a misunderstanding of the term. NSF was compelled to fire all of the people serving as “experts” (a kind of part-time program officer position) and nearly all of the permanent federal employees who hadn't been in their current positions for more than 2 years (so-called probationers). After a ruling on the probationers, NSF rehired them, but not the experts. IIS had 3 experts and 3 probationary program officers that were impacted. (We’re very very happy to have gotten all 3 probationers back.)
There's a magical list of keywords that must be avoided in proposals or abstracts for your work to be funded. Untrue. I’ve seen versions of this rumor all over the place, including the New York Times. NSF has used keyword searches to find classes of proposals for as long as there have been keyword searches. As you probably know, proposals are read multiple times by panelists, program staff, leadership, and the Division of Grants and Agreements before a decision is made as to whether to award funding. NSF has to follow all applicable rules and regulations and keyword matches are neither necessary nor sufficient for determining whether a project runs afoul of these restrictions. Semantics trumps syntax. (The NYT list includes these words, all of which are core concepts in a discrete math class I’ve taught at my home institution: inclusion, exclusion, barrier, equality, identity, inequality .)
Broadening participation is viewed as a negative. It’s not. It is the law of the land that NSF evaluates proposals according to “intellectual merit” and “broader impacts”. There is even a section of the United States Legal Code (42 USC 1862p-14) that enumerates seven specific broader impact goals for NSF to take into consideration, the final of which is “Expanding participation of women and individuals from underrepresented groups in STEM.” Broadening participation is still valued. Stay tuned for more guidance on this issue.
All CISE “medium” awards will be rejected because they are required to have Broadening Participation in Computing Plans. That’s not going to happen. (See the previous bullet.) Additional guidance is forthcoming.
NSF is releasing submitted proposals to a research group for predictive analysis. Definitely not. NSF treats submitted proposals with the utmost respect and care, acknowledging that they are provided to NSF confidentially for reviewing purposes only. This rumor came about because of a poorly worded press release that was actually referring to an analysis of NSF award abstracts (which are public and owned by NSF).
No-cost extensions are being denied. Not by us. I heard a rumor that other parts of NSF might be less likely to approve these requests than they used to be, but IIS is still following our established guidelines.
I hope this information at least helps limit the set of topics causing concern. I know there’s been a lot of uncertainty and confusion lately. But one thing that I’ve found very heartening is that the staff here is as committed as ever to supporting the research community as effectively as it possibly can. We are all struggling, but we’re in this together. If you have a burning question, feel free to reach out to me or Wendy or a cognizant program officer. We don’t have all the answers, but we are happy to share what we can with you.
Not that anyone needs any additional distractions, but I ended up making another puzzle for you. I call it “Misled”. It’s probably too hard, but you never know… here goes. After all these decades, my 1980s era Radio Shack pocket calculator may have finally blown a circuit. Now, when I ask it to sum up a list of numbers, it gives really weird (but consistent) answers. Here are some examples:
0+0+1 = 1
5+5+8 = 8
2+4+2 = 4
12+34+14=32
2+4+6+8 = 0
0+1+2+3+6 = 7
5+6+8 = 9
65+89+58 = 96
Can you figure out what’s going on? If so, what will I get when I add:
230+354+629+982=?
Thanks, all. Let's be careful out there.
-Michael