National Science Foundation cancels research grants related to misinformation and disinformation
Late on Friday afternoon, hundreds of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation got emails with bad news: their grants or fellowships had been cancelled.
Elon Musk’s DOGE — the questionably constitutional initiative that shares a name with a meme coin — celebrated that the NSF had cancelled at least 402 grants as part of the cuts. The cuts were made to awards “that are not aligned with NSF’s priorities,” according to an announcement on the NSF site, “including but not limited to those on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and misinformation/disinformation.”
Here’s a copy of an NSF grant termination notice that went out today. “NSF is issuing this termination to protect the interests of the government pursuant…on the basis that they no longer effectuate the program goals or agency priorities.” Not subject to appeal. #HigherEd #AcademicSky
— Megan Zahneis (@mzahneis.bsky.social) April 18, 2025 at 7:19 PM
In a FAQ published along with the announcement, the NSF cited an executive order signed by Donald Trump on inauguration day.
“NSF will not support research with the goal of combating ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation’ that could be used to infringe on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advances a preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate,” according to the FAQ.
As a Nieman Lab reader, you likely do not need it explained to you why this research is important. We’ve covered misinformation campaigns for years. Research can help journalists flag false information and identify factors that may improve trust in media. Research can also shed light on evolving technologies and an increasingly complex information landscape.
The NSF cuts are part of deep and sweeping cuts the Trump administration has made to federal funding for science and research. Some grant cancellations have been retaliatory and widespread across an institution. (Harvard University, home to Nieman Lab, has been repeatedly targeted.) Others reflect increasing partisan pressure on some academic lines of inquiry, with research with abstracts that include words like “transgender,” “underserved,” “vaccine,” etc. targeted to lose funding. The cuts “are sparing no part of the country, politically or geographically,” an analysis by KFF Health News found.
Gianluca Stringhini, an associate professor at Boston University studying cybersecurity and cybersafety, learned two of his NSF grants were canceled. Both were related to disinformation, he said.
“In particular we were hoping to develop AI-based techniques to provide social media users with more context about the posts that they see online, similar to the soft warnings used by Instagram and Twitter during COVID,” Stringhini explained in an email. (He pointed to this paper as an example.)
He hadn’t had the chance to convene with his “grants people” — given the 4 p.m. Friday email — so was unsure what the practical impacts on his group would be when reached over the weekend. He noted that NSF was one of the more prominent sponsors of this type of research. “Foundations support some of this work but their funding levels are typically much lower,” he said.
Kate Starbird, computer scientist and professor at the University of Washington, studies online disinformation. (We’ve discussed her work several times at Nieman Lab.) Starbird said in an email that her team was affected by the NSF grant cancellations. The cuts will be “disruptive and are disheartening, especially for junior researchers,” she said.
Starbird estimated 90% of her early work was funded by the NSF. She won a NSF RAPID grant to study online rumors in 2013 and a CAREER grant to study online disinformation in 2017.
“The NSF has been particularly helpful for launching new programs studying online misinformation and adjacent topics at the intersection of technology design and information integrity, for supporting development of research infrastructure, and for helping to forge collaborations across institutions,” Starbird said in an email. “I don’t have the numbers, so can’t make a comparison to other sources, but the NSF played an important role in supporting research on online misinformation and related topics such as designing healthier information spaces.”
Starbird said her group has enough funding to “keep core personnel and research going in the near term.” She and her colleagues do not expect to receive additional funding from the NSF in the near term and will look to other potential funders to continue their work.
“These cuts — along with diminished transparency of platforms (via data access to researchers), platforms retreating from content moderation, and the defunding of fact-checking organizations — are likely to make it even more difficult for researchers, journalists, and everyday people to find trustworthy information and to understand how social media and other information spaces are being manipulated for political and financial gain,” she added.
I got an email yesterday afternoon that my NSF SPRF Postdoctoral Fellowship was terminated. My grant focused on testing interventions to address online misinformation and I was 8 months into a two year appointment.
— Maddy Jalbert (@maddyjalbert.bsky.social) April 19, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Can confirm that my NSF grant “How False Beliefs Form & How to Correct Them” was cancelled today because it is “not in alignment with current NSF priorities” Shocking that understanding how people are misled by false information is now a forbidden topic. Our work will continue but at a smaller scale
— Lisa Fazio (@lkfazio.bsky.social) April 18, 2025 at 6:40 PM