Most Americans don’t read the rules that govern the federal grants funding science. Those rules, called the Uniform Guidance, shape how cancer research is funded, graduate students are trained, clinical trials are sustained, universities stock their labs and discoveries from those labs move into broader society.

When the Trump administration announced on May 29, 2026, its intentions to revise these rules, many researchers were alarmed.

The Office of Management and Budget – the White House agency tasked with implementing the president’s policies across the executive branch – proposed requiring political appointees to review grant decisions for whether research projects advance the president’s policy priorities. These political officials would also have greater authority to override the decisions of the research agencies managing the grants.

The proposal was open for public comment until July 13, 2026, and received nearly 500,000 comments. Scientists have warned that these changes could allow political considerations to displace objective assessments, undermining merit-based federal research funding.

The OMB said these changes are intended to improve transparency and oversight of federal funds. However, scientists worry that several of these revisions could make research less predictable, harder to share and more expensive to do.

Beyond concerns about political influence over funding decisions, there are also more practical issues: What happens when the federal grant system becomes less stable for the people involved in the work of research?

Deprioritizing scientific merit

The first issue is peer review. Federal science agencies already use peer-review systems to assess which research projects will receive federal funding.

These systems generally involve scientists and other specialists with expertise relevant to the proposed work. Grant proposals typically undergo several rounds of review, one involving external experts and one involving agency officials. I am a scientist who has served for many years on federal grant review panels, including within the National Institutes of Health.

Reviewers like me assess the scientific merit of a research proposal through several factors. These include the rigor and feasibility of the work – that is, whether the study design can appropriately answer the research question. We consider whether the investigators have the expertise and institutional support to conduct the work. We also assess........

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