米国の新たな助成金規則案：政府はいつでも研究費を打ち切れる Proposed new US funding rules: We can cancel any grant at any time

A proposed set of federal funding rules from the Office of Management and Budget has alarmed the US scientific community, and for good reason. The draft regulations would explicitly grant the government the authority to cancel any research grant at any time — a provision that, if finalized, could fundamentally destabilize the foundation on which American science operates.

Perhaps equally striking is the proposal to make peer review optional. Peer review is the bedrock quality-control mechanism of modern science, used universally to evaluate whether research meets basic standards of rigor and validity. Stripping it of its mandatory status would open the door to politically motivated funding decisions that bypass scientific judgment entirely. Compounding that concern, the rules would empower political appointees — not scientists — to screen grant applications for so-called "forbidden topics." What qualifies as forbidden remains undefined in the current draft, a vagueness that critics say is itself a form of coercion.

The OMB has been central to the Trump administration's sustained effort to reshape federal science priorities. Since 2025, funding tied to climate research, gender studies, and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives has been frozen or cut across multiple agencies. The new proposed rules appear designed to institutionalize that discretionary power, giving the executive branch a permanent, codified mechanism to redirect or withdraw science funding without going through Congress.

The implications extend well beyond any single political controversy. Federal grants from agencies like the NIH and NSF underwrite the majority of basic research conducted at US universities. Long-term projects — drug development, climate modeling, materials science — depend on multi-year funding stability. A clause permitting cancellation at any moment introduces a level of uncertainty that could make such projects effectively impossible to plan. Postdoctoral researchers and early-career scientists, whose livelihoods depend on grant continuity, would bear a disproportionate share of the risk.

There is also the subtler problem of chilling effects. When researchers know that certain topics might trigger political scrutiny or funding cancellation, rational self-interest pushes them to avoid those areas — even without any explicit prohibition. The result is a distortion of the scientific agenda that operates largely invisibly.

Internationally, the contrast is stark. The EU's Horizon Europe program explicitly enshrines scientific independence as a funding principle. Observers in the US research community have begun raising concerns about a brain drain, with European institutions actively recruiting American scientists who feel their work is under threat at home.

The proposed rules are subject to a public comment period before any finalization, and opposition from scientific societies, universities, and legal advocacy groups is expected to be substantial. Legal challenges are a real possibility, given longstanding precedents around administrative procedure and the separation of powers. Whether the rules survive that scrutiny intact remains to be seen, but their proposal alone signals a significant shift in how the federal government views its relationship to independent scientific inquiry.