The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a report on July 21 (PDF) entitled Science: A New Golden Age, which outlines the administration’s recommendations for reshaping the U.S. scientific enterprise. The report was accompanied by a memorandum (PDF), jointly issued by the OSTP and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), detailing the administration’s research priorities and a set of directives to agencies on how to implement the recommendations laid out in the report.
Core themes of the report include prioritizing physical sciences and engineering for federal research funding, emphasizing the use of artificial intelligence to advance research, encouraging greater integration of private industry into the research enterprise, adopting alternatives to traditional grantmaking and peer review processes, and providing more support for individual scientists rather than universities.
In the report, OSTP Director Michael Kratsios argues that this overhaul to the federal government’s approach to funding scientific research is necessary to reduce dependency on “a narrow set of legacy institutions” and reform incentive structures that “reward conformity over bold inquiry” in order to “free American scientists to do their best work.” However, there is concern within the scientific community that these changes, if implemented, could further hinder large research universities and academic medical centers and be used as a justification for proposing further cuts to the budgets of the National Institutes of Health and other federal research agencies.