As a university researcher focused on education, I have spent hundreds of hours designing studies to help the field and that might attract the National Science Foundation’s attention.

When I received my first National Science Foundation funding award – after many failed attempts – I joined a list of scholars whose work has led to innovations like the smartphone, high-speed fiber-optic networks and educational television shows like “Bill Nye the Science Guy.”

Congress created the National Science Foundation, or NSF, in 1950, to fund scientific and technological discoveries that benefit Americans.

In the academic world, few things signal success like receiving one of the approximately 11,000 grants the NSF gives out to researchers each year. These grants are typically worth an average of US$200,000, dispersed over several years. The foundation gives out about $8.5 billion annually in total.

The National Science Foundation’s work, though, has been upended under the current Trump administration – making it harder for researchers to secure funding that is necessary to complete our work.

Here’s what is most important to understand about what the National Science Foundation does, and why its work matters far beyond academic and scientific research circles:

Sethuraman Panchanathan, the National Science Foundation’s former director, resigned in April 2025, offering little explanation. The foundation remains without formal leadership.

Even with its fiscal year 2026 budget largely protected by Congress, the NSF has awarded grants at roughly 20% of its historical rate this fiscal year.

And in April, the Trump administration, without explanation, fired all 22 members of the National Science Board, an independent advisory group that supports the foundation’s work and also advised the president and Congress on science.

Not just an academic problem

After eight years of teaching high school science, I decided to get a Ph.D. to help improve the way science is........

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