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I don't want the title to sound like I am opposed to such things, I'm not! I do, however, want to receive federal money. In the current political climate, is it more likely to help me or hurt me to describe how I have tried and intend to keep trying to increase inclusivity and diversity in my field and related topics?

I would love input from people with more experience navigating grant/fellowship applications in general and recently.

Edit: I am specifically applying for pure math, although I am not sure if this is relevant.

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    Which field is this in? The relevance of such statements will very much depend on the field. Commented Nov 2 at 23:10
  • @user151413 mathematics Commented Nov 3 at 18:03
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    Ideally add this information to your question. Commented Nov 3 at 21:42
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    Personally, I think somebody should FOIA the training materials used to train GRFP reviewers. That would be the easiest way to nail the Broader Impact statement. It amazes me that what you needed to do to get a GRFP just a few years ago would disqualify you from getting a GRFP today. Commented Nov 4 at 17:10

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I really don't think you're going to find anyone who really knows a full answer to this question right now.

For context: The timeline for this year with the NSF has been, roughly. Quarters starting from January.

  1. First quarter: grants cancelled based on keyword searches (Google for the news articles to get an idea: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2025/03/15/these-197-terms-may-trigger-reviews-of-your-nih-nsf-grant-proposals/).
  2. Second quarter: more grants cancelled, the NSF's director resigns early, many NSF program coordinators quit. Reportedly the whole org chart is dissolved (https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-nsf-faces-radical-shake-officials-abolish-its-37-divisions) though I did not see follow up to this.
  3. Third quarter: The NSF is evicted from its physical premises. https://www.aau.edu/newsroom/leading-research-universities-report/hud-move-nsf-headquarters-leaving-nations-premier. Our grants people at my current employer tell me that some awards started to get made again in say June/July-ish.
  4. Fourth quarter: The government is shutdown.

Which is all to say: There have been, what, 2-3 months in there where the NSF was actually awarding new grants, max?

I haven't had any successful awards from the NSF in the past, so perhaps someone with that experience has some insight. Or perhaps one of the NSF's current or previous employees does. You should certainly talk to your university's grants department to see if they have any insight.

Meanwhile, the NSF has changed its language around its Broader Impact priorities. You should probably also read that carefully. https://www.nsf.gov/updates-on-priorities. My two cents, for what they're worth: If I were being conservative, I'd avoid any words on the censor list. Pitch any service activities as increasing access broadly to your local community or similar, rather than increasing diversity etc.

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Of course. If you have language that you have used in the past, you should review it very very carefully to avoid anything that might be flagged in the present regime.

In the past you needed to have very good science (good enough to get to the near top of the proposals under review) AND you needed to "check boxes" for all the other parts of the proposal. (I can't put my hands on an NSF proposal right now but I remember sections on "Broader Impacts" and "underrepresented Minorities.") In my experience a proposal that met scientific standards was never rejected for insufficiently expansive text in the other categories. Text in these other categories was sometimes a small positive.

It seems clear that re-using text that worked in the past is likely to result in rejection under the present regime. There have been stories that people applying for federal jobs have been asked to write how they would advance MAGA priorities. While I doubt anything quite as craven will work with NSF if you CAN legitimately say things that support some priorities without doing your conscience much violence you should probably do so.

Definitely talk to colleagues who have recent experiences.

And probably don't get your hopes too high given the present budget environment. It's still worth putting the proposals in though if nothing else so you can list them on the annual report.

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  • Since OP is applying for a graduate fellowship the point about the annual report might not apply. Commented Nov 2 at 22:46
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Integrity > Funding

Irrespective of the political climate at any given moment, the best thing for you to do is just to describe your proposed work clearly and candidly, using the language you would use absent any political considerations. You should feel free to describe your efforts/intention to keep trying to increase inclusivity and diversity in your field using the standard language that gets this across clearly. Maybe you will get funded and maybe you won't, but you will at least know that you were candid about what you propose to do. What will "hurt you" far more than the absence of funding is adopting a position where you attempt to hide/falsify your true beliefs, intentions, etc., for the purposes of obtaining money.

Whilst funding decisions in academia are indeed affected by political ideology, this tends to occur primarily at the level of the actual grant assessors. To the extent that there is higher-level policy instruction on priorities, etc. (e.g., coming from government policy), attempts to subvert the effectiveness of that intervention by hiding what you are doing is likely to lead only to less confidence in the academic system overall and consequent loss of funding in the long-term.

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    This answer presumes that the government guidance is moral and ethical. Commented Nov 2 at 22:26
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    I can understand the sentiment behind this answer, but we can do lots of things that are not mentioned in a research proposal. For that matter, many of the people assessing a proposal may be very sympathetic to one's (eminently reasonable...) view, but the bottleneck may be bureaucrats or AIs who will not be moved by hearing any statement of principle. And, if one doesn't get the money (similar to not getting elected) one can't do the stuff that was proposed... Commented Nov 2 at 23:07
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    @ÆzorÆhai-him- I interpreted it as closer to the opposite: you should stick to your morals, loudly and proudly, no matter how immoral the government is. Trying to placate an immoral government means betraying your morals, never mind that it commonly fails and/or backfires (just ask e.g. the news organisations, lawyers and universities that had to deal with more and more demands from Trump after they gave in to his initial demands). Commented Nov 3 at 11:44
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    I don't think the last paragraph accurately describes the current situation in the US. Political appointees have been cancelling previously awarded grants based on keyword searches, with the reason given that the research does not align with current administration goals. Commented Nov 3 at 14:33
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    When you are obliged to answer a political question for your grant application, the professional thing to do is NOT to follow your personal political opinion, but to say what they want to hear. Commented Nov 4 at 12:18

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