While I was chair of the National Science Board (NSB), which is the Presidentially appointed body charged with oversight of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), we launched a comprehensive review of how NSF selects and competitively awards funding for research proposals. We did so recognizing that leadership of the United States in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) enterprise is at an important crossroads, with global competitors now eclipsing the United States in technology areas critical to our future.
The Review Charge
The 2022 charge to the review committee was simple and direct:
…to assess the efficacy of the current Merit Review policy and associated criteria and processes at supporting NSF’s mission to create new knowledge, fully empower diverse talent to participate in STEM, and benefit society by translating knowledge into solutions
As such, the charge drew on the NSB’s earlier Vision 2030 report, written in 2020, which identified the need to “Evaluate how NSF’s broader impacts merit review criterion could better meet societal needs.” This reflects the NSB’s longstanding commitment to societal impact.
The Defining Context
The NSB believes Vannevar Bush’s animating vision of curiosity-driven research, outlined in Science, The Endless Frontier, as an engine to improve public health, ensure national security, and advance social and economic prosperity, is as vibrant and critical as ever. As Bush put it in his 1945 letter to President Roosevelt:
But without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world.
However, in our deep desire to explore the unknown, to probe new intellectual frontiers – defining attributes of our humanity – we must never lose sight of the fact that the ultimate rationale and justification for public investment in basic research is the betterment of our society and its citizens. We, as publicly funded scholars, work for the people.
In an ever-changing world, the “why” we explore remains constant, but the “how” is always subject to thoughtful reexamination. In his prescient letter, Bush also emphasized the importance of curiosity-driven exploration as the enabler of scientific progress, noting:
Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown.
It is an endless, competitive race to the future, where advantage accrues to those societies that attract, identify, cultivate and empower talent – the best and the brightest on the planet – to ask and answer critical questions. (See Science: It’s About the Wide-Eyed Wonder)
Alas, it is a race the United States is in increasing danger of losing, even as NSF and the NSB sounded the alarm about the criticality of continued and expanded investment in human talent and fundamental discovery via its Vision 2030 message. (See Missing Talent, Missing Opportunities, Losing Ground)
Losing Leadership in a Competitive World
Today, the U.S. no longer leads the world in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) doctoral degree production, research publications, and patents; China does. This is not simply a matter of opinion. It is supported by rigorous analysis, conducted biannually by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) and mandated by the U.S. Congress. For a cogent depiction of the state of U.S. science and engineering, I highly recommend these two graphics: A Changed Science and Engineering Landscape and Winning the Race to the Future.
Nor is this simply a U.S. perspective. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) recently evaluated research on a host of current emerging technologies, concluding via its Critical Technology Tracker that China now leads in nearly 90 percent of critical areas, up from less than five percent at the turn of the 21st century. As the ASPI summarized:
The historical data for these new technologies tell a familiar story: an early and often overwhelming U.S. lead in research output in the opening decade of this millennium, eroded and then outmatched by persistent long-term Chinese investment in fundamental research.
China’s rise is no accident. It watched and learned, adopted the U.S. playbook, and invested strategically for the long term – creating research initiatives in critical areas such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum computing, material science, and advanced manufacturing, while also educating and training its people.
Simply put, global scientific and engineering leadership is not a birthright. It is earned by sustained strategic investment in people and ideas, as trained and supported talent explore the endless scientific frontier. We are complacent at our peril.
As I have pleaded to the U.S. Congress, we need to “double down” on the future. In my 2024 testimony, I offered two key recommendations: (See A Call to Action: Congressional Testimony)
- A 21st Century NDEA. The need to pass and fund a 21st century version of the National Defense and Education Act (NDEA) to address STEM education quality and inequities, and rekindle the passion for discovery among both our students and our citizens. (By way of reference, the 1960s NDEA response to the Sputnik crisis, cost ~$20B in 2017 dollars)
- Improved Coordination. The need to improve government coordination of STEM strategy, with accountability for outcomes against a clear and compelling national science and technology strategy. Our global economic competitiveness and our national security depend on it.
This context makes the NSB’s assessment of the merit review criteria both timely and important, as my successor as NSB chair, Dario Gil thoughtfully articulated; see Connected Horizons: New Opportunities in a Changed Landscape.
It’s no longer enough to simply say “trust us, good things will happen.” Hence, the Merit Review Commission (MRX) study is a deep dive on the process for identifying promising research ideas and assessing their societal impact – the benefits to the country if the idea delivered on its potential.
Reviewing Merit Review
For the past decade, proposals to the National Science Foundation have been reviewed by disciplinary experts, overseen by NSF program officers, using two criteria: intellectual merit and broader impacts. The first assesses “the potential for the proposed project to advance knowledge and understanding within its own field or across different fields.” The second assesses “potential for the proposed project to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes.” These criteria represent the modern implementation of Vannevar Bush’s vision: a compact where the public funds “free play of free intellects” in exchange for long-term national progress.
Recognizing that the global landscape has shifted, the Merit Review Commission (MRX) spent three years analyzing a decade of proposal data and outcomes. In December 2025, the Commission released its report, Merit Review for a Changing Landscape.
Before turning to the MRX recommendations, let me express my gratitude to NSB member Wanda Ward, who chaired the review, Julia Phillips, vice chair, along with other NSB committee members, notably the indefatigable Steve Willard, and staff. It was no small task, and their thoughtful diligence is reflected in the report. I encourage you to read the report and its appendices for the complete assessment.
The MRX reaffirmed three pillars of the NSF process that remain essential to scientific integrity:
- Expert Peer Review. A competitive process that relies on expert review is the best method to award funds.
- Criterion Validity. The NSB’s Merit Review criteria, currently called Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts, are appropriate and sufficient to identify proposals that advance NSF’s mission.
- Program Director Empowerment. NSF’s program directors are integral to the merit review process and should be empowered in decision-making and portfolio construction to the maximum extent possible.
To secure U.S. leadership in a more competitive global environment, the NSB recommends a more strategic, inclusive, and mission-aligned framework:
- Enrich the Reviewer Pool. Boost participation and invite expert reviews from a wider range of industry, research institutions, venture capital, and regions of the country.
- Highlight Societal Benefits. Emphasize that NSF-funded research must deliver societal benefits, including research that advances the nation’s economic competitiveness and national security.
- Build Agency-Level Portfolios. Build NSF’s award portfolio at the agency level for greater nimbleness and strategic alignment with national priorities, both current and emerging.
Collectively, they emphasize the enduring value of the intellectual merit and broader impacts criteria and retaining support for curiosity-driven, serendipitous discovery, while highlighting the need for greater accountability and alignment with areas of strategic national need. The bottom line – there is no substitute for scientific excellence.
From Report to Action
As the United States navigates internal divisions regarding the strategic directions and priorities for federally funded research, we must remember that vigorous, fact-based debate is a hallmark of democracy. However, the integrity of our scientific enterprise depends on the “epistemic guardrails” of rigorous, independent verification. When political discourse bypasses these guardrails, it threatens the objective foundation upon which sound science policy must be built. (See A Canticle for Reason and The Hopes of Parents and the Dreams of Children)
Make no mistake, science – asking questions and conducting experiments subject to repeatable, independent, rigorous verification – is arguably one of humanity’s greatest inventions, right up there with writing, agriculture, fire, and the wheel. Indeed, agriculture, the use of fire, and the wheel are all applied science and engineering, while writing is our way of passing accumulated knowledge and human culture to successive generations. (See The Epistemology of Science)
Science is also one of our most egalitarian processes. As the late physicist, Richard Feynman, once remarked:
It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.
That is the essence of scientific merit review – independent assessment by disciplinary experts who look at the data. The experts and the data are not always right, and science is sometimes temporarily wrong, but it is inherently self-correcting and always data driven. There is a reason why scientists embrace the notion that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” It’s a fancy way of saying, “Show me the data.”
The historical strength of the U.S. scientific enterprise has long rested on the quality of its scientific talent, the sustained investment of the Federal government in the future, and the tireless diligence of research agency staff who implement independent, data-driven processes. It has long been the envy of the world.
Is the U.S. research ecosystem broken? Absolutely not; there’s a reason the rest of the world studied it and copied it. Can it be improved? Of course, and that is the essence of the MRX report recommendations, improving the “how” to match the urgency of the “why.”
In the United States, we need to up our game. That means investing more, not less, and attracting the best talent from everywhere – domestically, in every geographic region of the country, and internationally.
We win by being better; there is simply no substitute for scientific excellence in service of societal needs. That is the scientific good news. (See The (Scientific) Good News.)
We have the data; it’s time to act.
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