Lawmakers challenge NSF grant decisions

The peer review system at the National Science Foundation was repeatedly challenged by lawmakers at two separate congressional hearings on 17 April.

The chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee suggested that the agency’s funding guidelines should be amended to specify that any grants awarded must “directly benefit the American people.”

During a hearing of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee’s Research Subcommittee, that full committee’s chairman—Republican Representative Lamar Smith from Texas—announced that he would ask the National Science Board that governs NSF to examine ways to ensure that the agency doesn’t fund studies that seem frivolous or wasteful.