The U.S. Office of Management and Budget recently proposed extensive changes to federal grant guidelines that would severely restrict how scientists communicate their research findings to the public and American taxpayers. The proposed revisions represent a significant loss of transparency with respect to how taxpayer dollars are used to advance scientific knowledge, and would impede the ultimate goal of science—to discover information about how the world works and share it with others, so together as a society we can solve global challenges, from finding disease treatments to predicting natural disasters. Limiting communication of scientific findings and efforts to limit transparency run counter to the core mission of NASW: To fight for the free flow of science news and to actively promote press freedom and facilitate efforts to preserve and improve access to information related to science and scientific research.
Importantly, the changes proposed to §200.421 threaten the livelihoods of institutional science communicators by prohibiting federal research funds from covering public relations costs, with limited exceptions. Aside from keeping the lights on in labs, federal grant funding traditionally covers other indirect costs, including communications work required to translate and promote federal research findings across websites, magazines, social media, and press releases. If this rule goes into effect in its current form, universities and research institutes stand to lose critical funding to continue supporting communications functions, and institutional communicators could face unemployment.
By limiting transparency and the communication of scientific findings, the proposed rule revisions would also likely limit the ability of journalists and the public to access information about publicly funded science. The OMB guidelines propose new restrictions on scientists' ability to attend conferences (§200.432), publish their findings in certain journals (§200.461), and engage in “issue advocacy or public messaging” (§200.450) related to their research, creating challenges for journalists in covering new research and securing sources who can speak freely on the record.
We encourage NASW members and other members of the public to comment before the July 13 deadline: Go to regulations.gov to log your opposition to OMB-2026-0034.
Sincerely,
The NASW Institutional Communicators Committee
The NASW Board of Directors
