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From Inside Higher Ed: The National Science Foundation’s chief management officer says the agency, a major federal research funder, is seeking approval to hire more employees after the Trump administration’s cuts last year left it without enough staffing. Micah Cheatham also told the National Science Board, which approves NSF policies, at Wednesday’s board meeting that the agency is trying to “consolidate” solicitations for grant awards to half, or less, of the usual amount of these funding opportunities—raising concerns that fewer researchers will receive funding. Cheatham said this move would reduce workload, but also help applicants. “The fewer solicitations you have, the less time grant applicants have to figure out which of our pigeonholes they fit into,” he said.

Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, a board member and the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s vice chancellor for research, expressed concern that fewer solicitations will lessen junior faculty’s ability to receive awards that jump-start their careers. She also said the agency’s practice of frontloading the funding of previously multiyear grants further reduces how many researchers receive grants in a year...

The White House confirmed that Trump is nominating Jim O’Neill as the NSF’s next director. O’Neill was dismissed earlier this month from leading the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a position he had only held since late August.*

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2026/02/26/nsf-plans-boost-staffing-halve-grant.

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From CNN: ...O’Neill, who [was] second-in-command behind Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at HHS and the interim leader of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been a controversial figure at the agency, where he helped to amplify anti-vaccine messaging and concerns about Medicaid fraud, and cheered the United States’ departure from the World Health Organization...

Full story at https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/13/health/rfk-aides-jim-oneill-hhs-cdc.