National Science Foundation cancels research grants related to misinformation and disinformation
Megan Zahneis of The Chronicle of Higher Education shared the grant termination announcement on the BlueSky platform on April 18.
Nieman Lab
Late on Friday afternoon, hundreds of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation got emails with bad news: their grants or fellowships had been cancelled.
Elon Musk’s DOGE — the questionably constitutional initiative that shares a name with a meme coin — celebrated that the NSF had cancelled at least 402 grants as part of the cuts. The cuts were made to awards “that are not aligned with NSF’s priorities,” according to an announcement on the NSF site, “including but not limited to those on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and misinformation/disinformation.”
In a FAQ published along with the announcement, the NSF cited an executive order signed by Donald Trump on inauguration day.
“NSF will not support research with the goal of combating ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation’ that could be used to infringe on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advances a preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate,” according to the FAQ.
ADDITIONAL NEWS FROM THE INTEGRITY PROJECT
