Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2025-21

NSF Notification

Deferred Implementation of Indirect Cost Policy for Institutes of Higher Education (IHEs)

Issuance Date: May 20, 2025 

Effective Date:  May 20, 2025 

Applies to: All new awards and associated subawards to IHEs. 

This notice is being issued to all NSF proposers and recipient organizations, Principal Investigators, and Authorized Officials for awareness.  The National Science Foundation (NSF) is temporarily pausing implementation of NSF Policy Notice: Implementation of Standard 15% Indirect Cost Rate (NSF 25-034) through June 13, when a hearing is scheduled to occur in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Association of American Universities, et al. v. National Science Foundation, et al., No. 25-cv-11231.  This policy applies to all new awards and associated subawards to IHEs. New NSF awards and associated subawards issued during this pause will not implement NSF 25-034 but will include a term applying NSF 25-034 for the entirety of the award if there is a court decision permitting application of the policy.   

NSF reserves the right to modify, rescind, or fully implement NSF 25-034 to the entirety of awards and subawards issued to IHEs on or after May 5, 2025 in accordance with applicable legal rulings and administrative procedures.

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Rapid Response Bridge Funding Program

In the face of recent abrupt shifts in federal funding for education research, including large-scale terminations of National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant awards, we have developed a rapid response bridge grant opportunity for impacted scholars, in collaboration with The Kapor Foundation, The William T. Grant Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This rapid response bridge funding opportunity is for scholars and teams whose grants have recently been cancelled by NSF. While it is impossible for private philanthropy to close the gap left by federal funders, we can provide modest grants to mitigate some of the impact on scholars, projects, and project teams. These $25,000 grants are for activities to address immediate needs following grant cancellations, including completing a wave of data collection, analyzing already collected data or writing, thoughtful project closure with community partners, or preparing grant proposals to continue the research. To be eligible for these grants, scholars must: (1) be working on research on STEM and education (including AI and CS, graduate education and MSIs, and scholarship that aims to reduce inequality), and (2) have had a recently terminated or cancelled grant from NSF. Where possible, we will prioritize early-career scholars.

To Apply:  We are asking that PIs provide:

• The original funded proposal
• Your NSF termination letter
• A 2–3-page (no more than 1200 words) narrative memo describing the plan for
• activities to be completed over a 6-month period.
• A budget for a maximum $25,000 (no indirect costs). We ask that scholars ask
• for only what they need within this limit, and to note if they have access to
• bridging funds at their university. Our goal is to fund as many people as possible
• with our limited funds.

Please send these materials to RapidResponse@spencer.org with Rapid Response in

the subject line.

There are two deadlines for requests: May 30, 2025 and June 13, 2025 (12:00 p.m. Central). Principal Investigators may only apply once. Decisions for the May cycle will be made by June 15. Decisions for the June cycle will be made by June 30. Program contact: RapidResponse@spencer.org

NSF: Verticals-enabling Intelligent Network Systems (VINES)

NIH: Forecast: NIH Director’s Transformative Research Awards (R01 Clinical Trial Optional); Forecast: NIH Director’s New Innovator Award Program (DP2 Clinical Trial Optional)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: Quantum Characterization, Calibration, and Control (QC3)Research Interests of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research

Industry awaits significant disruption as GSA works on contract takeovers: No matter what your opinion is, government contractors and their agency counterparts should brace themselves for significant disruption as the General Services Administration moves to absorb nearly all responsibility for acquiring “common goods and services.” As we reported on Wednesday, GSA is developing plans to take over the management of government-wide contract vehicles at NASA and the National Institutes of Health. That plan is part of GSA's effort to take on the buying of commercial IT products and services for all government. Sources said the consolidation efforts are initially focusing on civilian agencies and GSA is not looking at defense acquisitions yet. One source described it as a continuing evolution of the category management framework begun during the Obama administration, with roots going back into the George W. Bush administration. GSA officials have not made a final decision, and one source cautioned the moves are not a done deal until the Office of Management and Budget signs off on them. But many in industry have been expecting more aggressive moves like this by GSA to consolidate the acquisition of IT goods and services. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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NIST works to bring more everyday understanding to quantum science: Quantum science, and especially its most popular offshoot, quantum computing, have come a long way in a fairly short period of time. Back when Nextgov/FCW first started reporting on quantum computing advances in government, a lot of people would write in and ask what quantum computing actually was, and quite a few articles and columns at the time attempted to explain how it all worked. There was even some degree of skepticism about whether a functioning quantum computer could actually ever be created

These days, quantum computing has reached quite a few major milestones. For example, Google and NASA achieved quantum supremacy, the point where a quantum computer is able to solve a problem that no traditional computer could within a reasonable amount of time, back in 2019. And agencies in cooperation with private companies continue to experiment with different types of qubits, which is what powers quantum computers, to find ever more efficient designs. Different qubit types now include trapped ions, superconducting, semiconducting and even photonic ones made of light. But even with all those advancements, both quantum computers and the science itself are out of reach and out of sight for most normal people. That is why NIST is celebrating 2025 being designated as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology with a campaign to educate people about quantum science and computers. This includes programs and papers that demonstrate how quantum science is already operating in the real world, while also attempting to explain in layman’s terms many of the bizarre-seeming concepts that help quantum computers work. More information is posted on the NextGov website.