We’ve all heard about the changes to federal research funding since the beginning of the Trump administration. This episode of our special series Academic Freedom on the Line takes a deeper look at the landscape of federal research funding. How is research funding allocated? What is disrupted when these funds are precipitously cut? What could this mean for the future of research in the United States? To help us answer these questions, we call on experts in the fields of federal bureaucracy and legal studies. Our guests are Mary Feeney and Ethan Prall. Feeney is the Frank and June Sackton Chair and Professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University and Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Prall is an environmental legal scholar and scientist, a Harvard Law School grad, and currently an Abess Fellow, Society of Conservation Biology Graduate Student Fellow, and doctoral candidate in environmental science and policy at the University of Miami. 

Links to resources mentioned in the conversation: 

• AAUP Action Report: Understanding the Law and Policies for Grant Terminations for the National Science Foundation
• NSF Funding breakdown by state:  Workbook: NSF by Numbers
• NIH in your state: NIH In Your State - United For Medical Research 
• Science is US: Do science and engineering drive economic growth?
• Grant Watch tracker compiled by Noam Ross and Scott Delaney: https://grant-watch.us/ 
• 75th anniversary edition of The Endless Frontier by Vannevar Bush