SCIENCE sciencemag.org 3 JANUARY 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6473 13CREDITS: (GRAPHIC) D. MALAKOFF/
SCIENCE
; (DATA) U.S. CONGRESS/WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
Panchanathan, attended IIT Madras in the
mid-1970s, and he says its graduates—who
are drawn from the most scientifically pre-
cocious of the country’s vast pool of young
people—“have done very well” in life.
Open borders fostered his own career,
says Suresh, who left NSF in 2013 to become
president of Carnegie Mellon University,
and is now president of Nanyang Techno-
logical University. Leading NSF could put
Panchanathan on a similar leadership tra-
jectory. In 2017, he was runner-up to become
president of the University of Arizona, and
Kambhampati says he has been considered
for other top academic positions. “Panch
enjoys playing a leadership role within the
scientific community,” Kambhampati says.
“He tends to have a big vision on issues.”
Panchanathan declined to comment on his
nomination. But in October 2019, he got the
chance to appear on a national policy stage,
testifying at a Senate hearing on “ensuring
America’s economic and strategic leader-
ship” through research and innovation.
Senators spared Panchanathan when
they pressed a panel of top scientists on
the sensitive issue of combating threats to
U.S. research from foreign influences. But
he weighed in when they asked about ways
to eliminate gender discrimination and
remove barriers to entry for those groups
underrepresented in science.
He cited a program at ASU that has at-
tracted more undergraduate women into
the mostly male discipline of engineering
by showing how it relates to the social sci-
ences, where women are often a majority.
The social sciences also play an important
role in his research. But he refused to of-
fer legislators a silver bullet for creating a
more diverse scientific workforce. Under-
represented groups “need more role mod-
els,” he said. “And culture change is hard.”
Even those who don’t know him well
expect him to be a good fit for NSF. “He’s
got all the right qualifications,” says Arden
Bement, an emeritus professor at Purdue
University who was nominated by former
President George W. Bush and preceded
Suresh as NSF director. “And I think he’ll be
a good partner with Kelvin. ... There’s going
to be a lot of uncertainty in the next year or
so,” Bement adds, drily, “and having those
two hands at the helm should help science
to stay on course.”
Córdova, nominated by Obama to head
NSF, says she’s “thrilled with Panch’s nom-
ination.” She deflected a question about
her plans after leaving the agency, saying,
“The most important thing for me is to
finish strong.” jSethuraman Panchanathan’s research has focused on
building technologies to help those with disabilities.L
ast summer, U.S. congressional lead-
ers and the White House agreed to
raise federal spending over the next
2 years by $125 billion above pro-
jected levels. The deal effectively
removed the threat of large cuts to
research agencies that President Donald
Trump had proposed in his 2020 budget
request. But those agencies didn’t learn
precisely how much money they would get
until late last month, when Trump signed
a $1.37 trillion spending bill for the 2020
fiscal year, which ends on 30 September.
In the short term, the news is good. Once
again, the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) did the best, with Congress overrid-
ing Trump’s proposed $5 billion cut and
handing the agency a fifth straight annual
increase of at least $2 billion. Science pro-
grams at the Department of Energy and
NASA made a similar rebound from a pro-
posed double-digit cut to a healthy increase,
and DOE’s Advanced Research Projects
Agency-Energy escaped a proposed termi-
nation and instead will grow by a robust
16%. Congress also strengthened climate
and environmental research programs at
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and the U.S. GeologicalSurvey that the Trump administration had
targeted. And the bill includes the first fed-
eral funding for gun violence research in
decades and language urging reductions in
the use of animals in research.
However, this year’s totals for research
may be a high-water mark for Trump’s
4-year term. Unless the White House and
Democrats take the unlikely step of reopen-
ing the budget deal, Congress will have just
$5 billion to add to agency budgets in 2021,
far less than the $44 billion extra it was
able to hand out this year. (The July 2019
agreement erased draconian cuts sched-
uled to go into effect in 2021.) So any ma-
jor spending increases next year will have
to come at the expense of cuts elsewhere.
The bad news came early for the National
Science Foundation (NSF), which received
a second straight year of modest growth.
The agency was already under siege from
Trump, who wanted to cut its $8 billion
budget by 12%. Legislators had fought back:
A spending bill passed by the House of Rep-
resentatives in June 2019 would have grown
NSF’s budget by $565 million, and in Oc-
tober the Senate voted for a bump of $
million. But rather than splitting the differ-
ence, Congress ended up giving NSF only a
$205 million increase, less than both marks
and only 2.5% above last year.Trump request versus 2019NIH DOE
scienceNASA
scienceNSF1050Percentage change2 020 1nal appropriations ($ increase)($2.6 billion) ($410 million) ($230 million) ($205 million)Congress again rejects Trump
cuts, smiles on science agencies
2020 spending bill increases research budgets, but next
year will be tougher as lawmakers will have less to spend
U.S. BUDGETBy Jeffrey MervisReversal of fortune
Congress not only rejected deep budget cuts to major science agencies proposed by President Donald Trump
for 2020, but also provided sometimes hefty increases in a final spending deal.Published by AAAS