Massachusetts has lost more National Science Foundation money for science, math, and engineering research than any other state this year, according to a Globe analysis of terminated grants.
Since the start of the second Trump administration, the NSF has cut 251 grants to Massachusetts institutions worth $249 million, federal data showed. That accounts for a lion’s share of the $265.4 million in NSF grants lost at 40 institutions across New England. The cuts could mean lost jobs and hundreds of research projects abruptly halted without a clear path forward.
Until now, public attention has focused on cuts to health and medical research by the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that encompasses the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The NSF, while also part of the federal government, sits outside HHS and funds nonmedical research across a wide range of subject areas including technology and engineering.
New England has lost about twice as much money to CDC and NIH cuts as it has to NSF cuts: about $560 million. The purge is a piece of the Trump administration’s effort to extensively reshape how federal money for research, science, and health is used.
The new data showing the NSF cuts’ outsize toll in the state coincided with Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, both Democrats, sending a letter to Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy earlier this week, seeking an explanation for the “ongoing chaos and upheaval” at the agency. The senators said the NSF cuts potentially violate court orders and endanger the country’s scientific excellence.
“Cutting the research we need to train scientists, build safer bridges, and advance innovation is foolish and shortsighted,” Warren said in a statement Monday. ”I want answers about why this is happening and what Trump’s science advisor is going to do about it."
Kratsios and the White House did not respond to a request for comment. In remarks this week to the National Academy of Sciences, Kratsios described American research as stagnating and suggested private investment could play an even greater role in supporting science.
“To get more bang for America’s research bucks, we need to enhance the creativity and precision of our funding,” he said.
Deep cuts in grant funding are part of a radical reorganization at the NSF. The publication Science reported earlier this month that the agency’s 37 divisions were being abolished, along with possibly 55 percent of its budget. Half its staff could be laid off. The senators’ letter sought specifics about how the agency was being reshaped.
The NSF is reviewing its awards to eliminate funding for projects that don’t match the Trump administration’s priorities and goals, a spokesperson said Monday. Those include President Trump’s executive orders that have sought to withhold federal funding to projects that touch on gender issues or diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Last year, the NSF allocated $7.2 billion in grants for research and related expenses to 1,850 colleges and universities nationwide. Government investment in nondefense research and development yields a 140 to 210 percent return, according to a 2024 analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
All 10 of the largest NSF grants canceled in New England were in Massachusetts — about half tied to programs focused on diversity and equity.
The terminations, Governor Maura Healey said, are ”halting research and scientific breakthroughs, stifling job creation and economic growth, and hurting American competitiveness and leadership in technologies and innovation.”
Harvard University accounts for $195 million, or 78 percent, of the state’s canceled funding and 74 percent of New England’s total. Beginning May 6, Harvard received letters from several government funding entities, including the NSF, stating that $2.2 billion in grants frozen by the federal government had been terminated. The university remains locked in a legal battle with the administration over the funds. Harvard amended its lawsuit to challenge the terminations, and cited an NSF letter that stated race discrimination, antisemitism, and bias at Harvard prompted the cuts.
“It is insane, period,” said David Charbonneau, a Harvard astronomer and one of the world’s leaders in the search for extrasolar planets, who lost a grant of more than $537,000. “We are the envy of the world. Why we would cut the legs out from that system makes no sense.”
Alan Brown, a structural biologist whose $1.2 million NSF grant was terminated last week, came to Harvard eight years ago from Cambridge University. He described the United States as the best place in the world to do science. The Trump administration’s approach to science funding has rattled that opinion.
If he had to make a career move now, Brown said, “I would not be looking to come to the US.”
Brown’s work, a collaboration with Swiss scientists, focuses on a parasite that causes the sometimes fatal illness Leishmaniasis. Understanding how the parasite swims, and learning how to hobble it, could help prevent Leishmaniasis and provide insights into how similar mechanics play a role in other health problems, including male infertility.
The biggest loss outside Harvard was nearly $9 million to Northeastern University for its Engineering PLUS program, which aims to boost participation of underrepresented groups in STEM fields.
“These students are future scientists and engineers who will go work in companies, start companies, and innovate,” said Matthew Lackner, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who lost a $3 million grant that supported 26 graduate students. “We need all the engineers and scientists we can get.”
Lackner said he hopes the university can fill the financial gap created by the federal cuts through the summer, but long-term support remains uncertain. It’s not clear if all the grad students will be able to continue their education.
In their letter, Warren and Markey raised questions about the NSF’s leadership structure and expressed alarm that the NSF has virtually frozen its grant award operation while subjecting previously approved grants to additional scrutiny. They sought details about how the NSF determined which grants failed to align with the Trump administration’s priorities and whether its review of grants was guided by good science and rigorous peer review. The senators sought specifics, too, about how Trump’s executive orders affected the nation’s scientific research priorities.
“We write to seek answers regarding why the Trump administration has led the agency into such disarray,” the letter stated.
Jason Laughlin can be reached at jason.laughlin@globe.com. Follow him @jasmlaughlin. Neena Hagen can be reached at neena.hagen@globe.com. Nathan Metcalf can be reached at nathan.metcalf@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @natpat_123.