The National Science Board purge, explained

Amidst the many attention-grabbing headlines of 2026, there is a recent one that may have flown under the radar but shouldn't have. On April 24, the White House dismissed the entire 22-person board that oversees the National Science Foundation. The NSF is an independent federal agency that supports science and engineering in all 50 states and U.S. territories.

To discuss the impact of the NSF more broadly, its significance for university research, and the likely consequences of this move, UC Riverside News turns to a distinguished faculty member who has extensive experience with the organization.

Tim Lyons is a distinguished professor of biogeochemistry at UCR. He serves as the director of UCR's Earth Astrobiology Center and is the Wilber W. Mayhew Endowed Chair in Geo-Ecology. Lyons holds a doctorate from Yale University, and is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. These are his thoughts on the NSF news.

Q: What is the National Science Foundation, and why has it historically been critical for university science and research?

A: The NSF was established by Congress in 1950 to promote science, improve national security through innovation, and advance national health and prosperity. It fulfills this mission mainly through making grants to places like UCR.

There are other federal agencies that fund science, but many of those prioritize more-applied research, and often with specific targets in mind. The National Science Foundation, while also seeking a wide range of impacts that extend to strategic, economic, and quality of life themes, is at its historic core the go-to agency for basic (blue-sky) research. Often times, basic research translates into concrete discoveries.

On their website, you can see examples of how their open funding opportunities have yielded major advances in biotechnology; computing including early advances that led AI and internet development; milestone discoveries in astronomy such as those made possible by their support of ground-based telescopes; and closer to my home, climate change, ocean drilling, geohazards including earthquakes, and studies of life on Earth extending back billions of years.

No other agency has so many different gateways to funding and opportunities for collaborative research across wide-ranging disciplines, spanning from small to large-team projects that demand thinking way beyond the comfort zones of individual scientists. In many ways the NSF is THE go-to agency for big ideas with potential for game-changing results.

Q: What is your own experience with the NSF?

A: My personal NSF journey started early and arguably made me what I am today. My graduate studies at Yale were funded by a grant proposal I wrote with my advisor for studies of the modern oceans. As a postdoc at the University of Michigan, I was successful with another award that I brought with me to my first faculty position, where I soon landed an important NSF CAREER Award.

For the decades that followed I had continuous NSF support, often with multiple awards, and these grants supported the training of many dozens of graduate students and postdocs who are now leading scientists at universities and institutes throughout the world.

The NSF was long home to my bread-and-butter programs, which most importantly allowed me to diversify in my research, take risks, and set the stage for everything that followed. The later chapters have included millions of dollars of funding from NASA and the spawning of a planetary science program at UCR. This spacey step was made possible by decades of NSF awards that targeted fundamental, first-order questions about the evolution of Earth and its life. This was the perfect launchpad for all our NASA work - a parlay of gains from studies at home toward the search for life far beyond. I have been very fortunate. And as repayment for my good fortune, I have spent years happily participating in countless NSF panels and outside visiting groups.

Q: In your view, is the firing of the advisory board something people should pay attention to, and if so, why?

A: This firing weakens the agency. The sad reality is that attacks on NSF, science, and scientists are making career trajectories like mine far less certain if not impossible for many extraordinary next-gen researchers in the U.S. And with that decline so goes global leadership and our ability to serve society in so many ways. Once gutted, it could take a generation or more to rebuild. I hope we can rise up soon and look down on what we are losing.

Sadly, I feel the NSF-ethos drifting away as their budget shrinks and restructuring blurs their landscape, including threats now for massive cuts for the next fiscal year and targets on specific research areas that will haunt us for generations. In the process, we are politicizing arguably America's greatest superpower, its drive to lead in creative, impactful, often monetizable innovation. We have long-been the shining intellectual light on the hill that has attracted the best and brightest from around the world. It is no wonder that hundreds of Nobel Laureates have been funded through the NSF.

Q: Can you think of any historical examples that are similar to what's happening now with the NSF?

A: I am burdened by the thought that our current attack on science has played out before. One only has to look at Nobel Prizes awarded before and after World War II. Germany not surprisingly dominated the pre-war list for science in particular, and the collection of scientific advances and scientists blows the mind. But from a war that led to destruction of infrastructure, loss of scientist through escape and death, and complete devaluation of peaceable pursuits, they never quite recovered. Yes, scientists based in Germany still win prizes, but the post-war big kid on the block, as quickly becomes clear from a glance at the Nobel list, became the U.S.

Most notably, this greatness in science drove our economy and elevated global admiration for what is possible with the right people and attitudes. Scientists flocked to our centers of research, not just American-born, but from around the world.

The German economy is now facing declines unequaled since the WWII in part because they gutted too much of their openness to leadership opportunities in emerging fields (think Silicon Valley on our end). They put too many eggs in too few baskets. Now, sadly, many there see weapons manufacturing as a path to economic survival as they retool away from making the best cars on the highways and other engineering marvels.

I fear that we are facing the same trajectory, with bullseyes on our universities, widespread brain drain, and devastating cuts to agencies, perhaps the NSF most notably, that make the prospect of next-gen leadership and path-defining hard to envision.

China is seizing this window, with massive commitments to scientific research, green energy leadership, and workforce development so that studying and working in the West - while also contributing to our excellence - has become far less attractive and necessary for their emerging scientists.

Q: What is a recent American scientific or engineering achievement that might not be possible without continued investment from the federal government?

A: The recent Artemis II Mission was a reminder of how Americans relish the big questions and leadership in the pursuit of answers. Tracking the mission from launch to splashdown, I was transported to the spirit-lifting moments of the Apollo missions during my childhood in times, like today, riddled with strife from an unpopular war and social and environmental injustices.

Then, unlike today, troubled times spawned some of the most significant societal protections in U.S. history - the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts and the Clean Air and Water acts. These will be locked back on as some our greatest moments, yet many now strive to undo them. It is not lost on me that the NSF was founded soon after WWII and NASA during the Cold War to accommodate the new generation of intellectual greatness and ambition in the U.S. and our desire to strut our scientific stuff. An intellectual and entrepreneurial phoenix rose from global ashes but I fear we are now losing that edge, along with the leadership necessary to bring it back.

(Cover image of scientists: NSF)