Six months ago, I had never heard of Vannevar Bush. Though I’ve been funded by various grants from federal agencies throughout my career (REUs, NASA grants), I had never thought to look into how these grants are formally created, and, further, why the government even funds science at all. So when on the first day of my science policy course we read Science, The Endless Frontier written in 1945 by then-director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development Vannevar Bush, it felt like a missing puzzle piece clicked into place.
In short, this is the document that establishes the National Science Foundation (NSF). Almost like a religious text to science policymakers, it lays out a doctrine for how science should be funded in the United States after World War II. Before the war, science was mainly funded by private donors, thus more dependent on the whims of the wealthy and their more secluded networks.
This document presents the foundational argument that the United States must “invest” in science (which, I think the document is also very interesting rhetorically, what with its over-emphasized metaphors of war like the “war on disease”—for a perspective on this rhetoric I recommend Susan Sontag’s Illness as a Metaphor–and how it views science mainly as a way for the United States to “stay on top”.) It also establishes a paradigm of basic research versus applied research.
Basic research is the more foundational work that has no immediate industry applications but lays the foundation for transformational technologies down the line–DNA research that leads to gene therapies, basic electromagnetism that leads to WiFi, and general relativity that leads to GPS. Applied research is the more immediate application of the basic research, how to implement it and use it commercially. This distinction is important, and I will return to it in the next section.
How science is generally funded
So, thanks to Vannevar Bush and FDR, we now have a system where researchers can write proposals to ask for funding from government agencies like the NSF, NASA, the NIH, the DOD, the DOE, etc. If you aren’t really familiar with how astronomers and grad students like us get funded, typically we (or our advisor) write a kind of application where we describe the work we want to do and how we plan to do it, which then goes in front of a panel of scientists for review.
For instance, I’m an observer, so I usually apply to NASA asking for time on telescopes (and the grant money that comes with it), which then is reviewed by a random group of scientists mostly outside of my field. There are several rounds of review and comparison to other proposals, where the reviewers weigh the merits of my science against others. This process is often what we call double-blind, so I don’t know who the reviewers are and they don’t know who I am, which helps prevent bias. My proposal is then accepted and funded, or rejected, meaning I’ll have to improve it for the next cycle. It may not be the most efficient method, but I’ve been starting to appreciate how it never previously required me to censor words like “polarization.”
For health fields, much of the money comes from the National Institute of Health (NIH) and for physics it can come from the Department of Defense (DoD) or Department of Energy (DoE). The one foundation that funds the widest variety of research is the NSF, which has a budget of ~9 billion per year, significantly less than NASA ($25bil) and the NIH ($48bil).
The budgets of these organizations are set by the federal government, which, as we know, have been proposed by the President to be significantly cut in FY2026. The budget is under review now, and the House and Senate have more encouraging budgets, but the House still proposes a $2 billion budget cut for the NSF as of writing this. (The AAAS keeps a good updated infographic about this). This would eliminate hundreds of important science programs, on top of the programs already cancelled because they aren’t in line with Trump’s politics.
While the budget is deeply concerning, I also want to focus on a more covert attack on science by Trump’s administration, which is in the actual proposal review process. Instead of proposals undergoing review by peer scientists, as is the current standard, the administration aims to give political appointees power over deciding which proposals are accepted. These appointees may have political and financial incentives, and furthermore are often more focused on immediate commercial results rather than foundational basic research. This is happening now at the NSF, and dozens of employees have sent an appeal to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology imploring them to prevent this politicization of the review process.
From mathematical institutes for theory being shut down, to the policing of language in scientific grants, to changing the rules for the NSF GRFP with no warning and no explanation, and arresting international students and researchers for their political views and making it virtually impossible to get H1-B visas, it appears that science is under increasing partisan political control. Thus many people in the science policy field are returning to the Vannevar Bush report, which, while it has its flaws, firmly holds that funding basic research is essential to the nation’s health, without the prerequisite of profit and without direct control from any administration. Decisions on what science can be done based on whether or not it supports the current administration’s views is a major concern to science everywhere, and the consequences will far outlast any presidential administration.
While this is mainly intended as a bit of a primer on science policy and the history of funding in the US, I want to offer some avenues where readers can make their voices on this subject heard. For researchers reading this, I recommend writing a Science Homecoming piece, a grassroots effort to write about how research funding uncertainty has impacted your work for your local hometown newspaper, to reach outside of our academic bubble.
For astronomy enthusiasts reading this, I recommend reaching out to your congressperson to advocate for continued funding levels to NSF, NASA, the NIH and the DOE, specifically their offices of science. AAS has a useful template on their action alert page. And continue to talk to friends, family, and colleagues about the importance of science research and the disastrous impacts the attacks on science will have.
The future of science funding
My science policy course showed me that science funding, its history and its present, is not something I should ignore. Further, is not some impenetrable black box that I can’t hope to understand. In this time of turmoil, my professor thinks, it’s also important to consider how we want science to be funded in the future. How could we improve the funding process? Does Vannevar Bush’s framework still work in the 21st century? Are universities too reliant on the federal government? How do we get more funds to go to less-supported universities? These are all questions that incredibly skilled, knowledgeable, and passionate science policymakers are considering every day as they work to support our research in the future. It’s up to us as scientists to connect with them to protect science funding and imagine a future paradigm for the 21st century.
Astrobite edited by Chloe Klare
Feature Image Credit: Victor Alfred Lundy, Library of Congress
