Universities Urge Federal Lawmakers to Honor Merit-Based Research

With federal budget negotiations in Washington nearing a climax, a group of 140 research universities and scientific societies has written to key lawmakers asking them to avoid interfering with the merit-based process for allocating federal research money. The groups, including the Association of American Universities and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, said they were especially alarmed by moves in Congress to eliminate specific projects supported by the National Science Foundation—such as those supported by the NSF Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences—whose scientific value may not be apparent to nonexperts and thus appear ripe for political exploitation.