Filed under #SheafHappens

With apologies to the amazing program officers keeping the ship afloat over at NSF TIP, whom I know are doing a lot with a little to keep the ship on course.

I've never submitted a proposal to DARPA, but if I had to imagine a solicitation for one, it might look a lot like this recent e-blast from NSF's TIP Directorate, but maybe without the sycophancy?

This substantial long-term investment underscores NSF's commitment to new models of research outside of traditional institutions, reflecting the truly interdisciplinary nature of today's modern science ecosystem.

Commitment! Love to hear that. But, uh, are these investments going to fund basic research? Because you don't get interdisciplinary breakthroughs without disciplinary foundations. And that's what those boring traditional institutions are good at.

NSF X-Labs are independent teams of researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs pursuing milestone-based federal funding to solve specific scientific challenges.

Reader poll: did your mind go immediately to X-men, or did you instead lament the recent perversion of \mathbb{X} by everyone's least favorite self-professed genius who shoots cars at Mars and misses?

Let me be clear: I love the mission of TIP, to help translate basic science into society-improving real products, and to help academics do more with their intellectual property. What I don't love here is the capture of NSF by "entrepreneurs" because to me that reads "AI companies" and other entities whose business plans and products involve a lot of things that would get a researcher at a "traditional institution" (hello, it's me) fired or censured (acquiring the entire pirated Library of Genesis; mass-producing pseudoscientific work that quotes verbatim from peer-reviewed research without attribution; researching user behavior without IRB in place; creating CSAM and nonconsensual sexual imagery of individuals).

There are many other federal funding agencies with missions better aligned to partner with (and co-fund with) commercial entities.

We should be worried that NSF's basic science capacity is being underfunded as the agency pivots toward industry and impact.

You can't have applied science without basic science.

Fun fact time!

The Trump Presidential Budget proposed ~$4 billion, so these X-Labs are eating almost half the budget Trump (and Vought) envision outlaying.