Look well on your mobile phone or tablet. Tactile screen technology, voice recognition, digital sound and internet recording were developed with funds from the United States National Foundation.
No matter where you live, the research backed by NSF has also made your life safer. Engineering studies have reduced damage and deaths caused by earthquakes through a better design of buildings. The improved hurricanes and tornado forecasts reflect the NSF investment in environmental monitoring and computerized climate modeling. Resilience studies backed by NSF reduce risks and losses due to forest fires.
With funds from the NSF, scientists have conducted research that surprise, entertain and captivate. They have drilled ice layers of a thick mile to understand the past, have visited the remains of the Titanic and have captured images of deep space.
NSF investments have made American science great. At least 268 Nobel Awards received Scholarships from the NSF during their races. The Foundation has been associated with agencies from the entire government since its creation, including those that deal with national security and space exploration. The Federal Reserve estimates that the investigation backed by the NSF government and other agencies has had an investment return from 150% to 300% since 1950, which means that for every dollar that US taxpayers invested, they recovered between 1.50 and 3 dollars.
However, this financing is now at risk.
Since January, dismissals, resignations of leaders and a massive reorganization proposal have threatened the integrity and mission of the National Foundation of Sciences. Hundreds of research scholarships have been canceled. The federal budget proposed by the Fiscal Year 2026 would cut the NSF funds by 55%, an unprecedented reduction that would end the federal support for scientific research in a wide range of disciplines.
In my own geology laboratory, I have seen how the subsidies of the NSF catalyze the research and work of dozens of students who have compiled data that are now used to reduce the risks of earthquakes, floods, landslides, erosion, increased sea level and melting glaciers.
I have also been part of advisory committees and review panels of the NSF during the last 30 years and I have seen the value that the Foundation produces for the US people.
The greatness of American science came from war
In the 1940s, with the advent of nuclear weapons, the space race and the intensification of the cold war, the American experience in science and engineering became increasingly critical for national defense. At that time, most basic and applied research was carried out by the military.
Vannevar Bush, an electrical engineer who supervised military research efforts during World War II, including the development of the atomic bomb, had a different idea.
He articulated an expansive scientific vision for the United States in Science: The Endless Frontier. The report was a model for a giant of American research based on the experience of teachers, staff and postgraduate students of the University.
On May 10, 1950, after five years of debate and commitment, President Harry Truman signed the legislation created by the National Foundation of Sciences and put into practice Bush’s vision. Since then, the Foundation has become the main funder of basic research in the United States.
The NSF mandate, then as now, was to support basic research and distribute financing for science in the 50 states. The expansion of the United States scientific workforce was and remains an integral part of American prosperity. In 1952, the Foundation granted merit scholarships to graduated and post -docoral scientists of all states.
There were commitments. The control of the NSF fell on people designated by the president, which disappointed Bush. I wanted scientists in charge to avoid political interference with the Foundation’s research agenda.
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The financing of the NSF is important for everyone, everywhere
Today, the money from US taxes that science supports goes to all states of the Union.
The states with the largest number of NSF subsidies granted between 2011 and 2024 include several who voted for Republicans in the 2024 elections (Texas, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania) and several who voted for the Democrats, including Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Colorado.
More than 1,800 public and private institutions, scattered in the 50 states, receive funds from the NSF. Subsidies pay staff salaries, teachers and students, promoting local employment and supporting university towns and cities. For states with important research universities, these subsidies add up to hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Even states with few universities allocate tens of millions of dollars to research.
As the beneficiaries of the NSF subsidies buy supplies and laboratory services, those dollars support regional and national economies.
When the NSF budgets are cut and subsidies are canceled or never granted, the damage is filtered and the communities suffer. The initial fund cuts of the NSF are already spreading throughout the country, affecting both national economies and premises in red, blue and purple states equally.
An analysis of a 2025 proposal that would cut around 5.5 billion dollars of the subsidies of the National Health Institutes estimated that the dominoes effect through university cities and supply chains would cost $ 6.1 billion in GDP, or total national productivity, and more than 46,000 jobs.
An uncertain future for American science
The United States research and scientific training company has enjoyed bipartisan support for decades. However, while the NSF celebrates its 75th anniversary, the future of American science is in doubt. Financing is increasingly uncertain and politics is promoting decisions, as Bush feared 80 years ago.
A list of subsidies canceled by the Trump administration, collected from both governmental websites and scientists themselves, shows that, in early May 2025, NSF had stopped financing more than 1,400 existing subsidies, for a total of more than one billion dollars to support research, research training and education.
Most of the canceled subsidies focused on education, the core of the development of the science, technology and engineering workforce, fundamental to provide highly qualified workers to US companies. For example, the NSF provided 1,000 less scholarships for postgraduate students in 2025 than in the previous decade, which represents a 50% drop in the support of the best students in the United States sciences.
American scientists are responding to the reduction of NSF personnel in various ways. Some are counteratacious challenging the termination of subsidies. Others are preparing to leave science or academy. It is likely that some move abroad, accepting offers from other nations to recruit American experts. The scientific organizations and six chiefs of the NSF are asking the Congress to intensify and maintain financing for scientific research and the development of the workforce.
If these losses continue, the next generation of American scientists will be less numerous and less prepared to address the needs of a population that faces the threat of a more extreme climate, future pandemics and the limits to growth imposed by finite natural resources and other planetary limits.
Investing in science and engineering is an investment in the United States. The decrease in NSF and the science that supports the US economy and the life of all Americans.
*Paul Bierman is a professor of natural resources and environmental sciences at the University of Vermont
This article was originally published in The Conversation/Reuters.
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