Programme officers at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) have been told to stop using their considerable clout with principal investigators to negotiate down the size of research grants. This tactic shifts part of the cost of the research from the NSF to the university receiving the grant. Last week, the National Science Board, the NSF's governing body, approved a new cost-sharing policy that prohibits the reduction of a grant without a corresponding reduction in the scope of the proposed work. It also requires cost sharing to be declared up-front, and prohibits its use as an unwritten criterion for selecting grants.
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