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Non-profit organizations
fromNature
1 day ago

Massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration

Proposed budget cuts for major US science agencies include over 50% reductions for NSF and EPA, while military funding increases significantly.
fromTNW | Startups-Technology
1 day ago

Wearable Robotics raises 5M to expand its arm exoskeleton

The ALEX RS is a bilateral upper-limb exoskeleton designed for post-stroke rehabilitation, covering 92% of the human arm's natural range of motion and is CE certified as a Class IIa medical device.
European startups
Intellectual property law
fromFortune
1 week ago

'Conservatives' want to tax university research. It would kill the goose that lays America's golden eggs | Fortune

Proposals to tax university R&D income threaten innovation and economic growth in critical technology sectors.
Venture
fromTechCrunch
1 week ago

Physical Intelligence is reportedly in talks to raise $1 billion, again | TechCrunch

Physical Intelligence is raising $1 billion at a valuation over $11 billion, doubling its previous valuation in four months.
Science
fromNature
2 weeks ago

Daily briefing: Funding calls plummet as NIH turns away from agency-directed science

The NIH shifts funding strategy toward unsolicited research proposals driven by individual scientists' interests rather than addressing specific scientific problems.
#nih-funding
fromwww.businessinsider.com
1 week ago

Anduril president says defense tech companies have to 'create a monopoly' to survive

"If you capture them, you have a business, and if you don't, you have no business," Steckman said of these programs.
European startups
fromInside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs
2 weeks ago

Labor Soliciting Applications for TRIO Grant on ED's Behalf

These actions further align the postsecondary and workforce education programs of ED and DOL and will position DOL as the central hub for America's postsecondary education and workforce development programs. Through the agreement, Labor is essentially administering ED grant programs, while ED continues to set the budget, criteria and priorities for the programs and manage hiring and other HR processes.
Higher education
Artificial intelligence
fromNextgov.com
3 weeks ago

From national AI policy to agency execution

Executive Order 14179 establishes AI as national strategy; agency success requires redesigning core workflows with embedded AI and establishing multi-model orchestration layers, not isolated pilots.
Non-profit organizations
fromNature
2 weeks ago

NIH pivots away from agency-directed science

The NIH is shifting from solicited grants addressing agency-identified priorities to unsolicited grants driven by individual researchers' interests, reducing administrative costs but potentially limiting large collaborative projects and understudied research areas.
Science
fromNature
3 weeks ago

How data can help to guide NIH funding policy

NIH funding distribution data reveals Massachusetts has slightly higher grant success rates than Iowa and Nebraska, but differences are not statistically significant in available SBIR/STTR datasets.
Intellectual property law
fromComputerworld
3 weeks ago

Microsoft seeks a stay on DoD's effective ban on Anthropic offerings

Microsoft filed to pause the DoD's supply-chain risk ban on Anthropic, citing potential disruption to its own defense contracting operations and revenue from Azure integrations.
#research-funding
Artificial intelligence
fromTechCrunch
3 weeks ago

Will the Pentagon's Anthropic controversy scare startups away from defense work? | TechCrunch

Anthropic's Pentagon deal collapse and supply-chain risk designation amid OpenAI's competing agreement raises concerns for startups considering federal government contracts.
Healthcare
fromFuturism
1 month ago

Government Handing Out Cash Bonuses to Drug Researchers Who Rush Through Regulatory Approvals

The FDA introduced a cash bonus program for drug reviewers who complete work ahead of schedule, creating potential conflicts of interest with accelerated approval processes.
fromFortune
4 weeks ago

This VC backed CrowdStrike and Anduril. His due diligence starts with your father | Fortune

Tell me about your father. Zeplain surprised Cardenas by opening their first meeting with this personal question rather than inquiries about revenue, margins, and market share. Cardenas provided Zeplain a list of everyone close to him—his wife, coworkers, and childhood best friends—and Zeplain called them all. The deal ultimately closed at a $250 million post-money valuation.
Venture
Non-profit organizations
fromNature
3 weeks ago

How Congress can restore the independence of US science

US federal science governance is shifting from merit-based civil service implementation to presidential political control, threatening research effectiveness and the science base.
fromCornell Chronicle
1 month ago

NYCST grants boost New York state space tech industry | Cornell Chronicle

As global competition in space accelerates, New York is mobilizing its premier research institutions through NYCST to address workforce shortages, close capability gaps and mature the critical technologies our nation needs. For decades, our state has been a home to innovative aerospace companies. Through NYCST, we are now aligning that heritage with our top-tier research institutions to ensure that industry can develop and scale up breakthrough technologies right here in New York.
Science
Artificial intelligence
fromSilicon Canals
4 weeks ago

Anthropic refused a $200M Pentagon weapons contract - now startups are racing to build what it wouldn't - Silicon Canals

As major AI labs refuse military contracts, specialized defense startups are filling the gap to build autonomous weapons systems with minimal oversight or accountability constraints.
Venture
fromFortune
4 weeks ago

The Pentagon is committing $150M to a maritime tech VC fund and appears to be ramping up venture deals | Fortune

The Pentagon commits $150 million to Mare Liberum, a maritime technology venture fund, as part of its strategic capital program supporting critical national security technologies.
fromInside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs
1 month ago

NSF Plans to Boost Staffing, Halve Grant Solicitations

The fewer solicitations you have, the less time grant applicants have to figure out which of our pigeonholes they fit into. In the past, a solicitation might have been for an individual program, which means it's attached to an individual program officer and a specific dollar amount. Now, instead of going to one program officer's area, the NSF will use technology to better route applications to wherever within the agency they can best be reviewed.
Science
fromArs Technica
1 month ago

Major government research lab appears to be squeezing out foreign scientists

A NIST employee tells WIRED that some plans to bring on foreign workers through the agency's Professional Research and Experience Program have recently been canceled because of uncertainty about whether they would make it through the new security protocols. The staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, says the agency has yet to widely communicate what the new hurdles will be or why it believes they are justified.
US politics
Venture
fromNextgov.com
1 month ago

Air Force Research Lab seeks more national approach for innovation

The Air Force Research Laboratory seeks input on establishing a national dual-use technology network to accelerate development of civilian technologies adaptable for military applications.
US politics
fromNature
1 month ago

Biotech investor set to lead US National Science Foundation

Donald Trump plans to nominate biotechnology investor Jim O'Neill to lead the National Science Foundation.
fromTruthout
1 month ago

Trump Admin Has Made Future of Federal Funding for Cancer Research Uncertain

Brugge and her research team have analyzed the cell structure of more than 100 samples. Using high-powered microscopes and complex computer algorithms, they diagram each stage in the development of breast cancer: from the first sign of cell mutation to the formation of tiny clusters, well before they are large enough to be considered tumors. Their quest is to prevent breast cancer, a disease that afflicts roughly 1 in 8 U.S. women over their lifetimes, as well as some men.
Cancer
fromFast Company
2 months ago

Most scientific inventions don't leave the lab. This VC firm is changing that

But he'd been considering an idea for new technology-an autonomous, wind-powered cargo ship. Then, while on paternity leave in 2024, he discovered a free program that helps scientists and engineers launch businesses for the first time. Weeks after finishing the program, called 5050, Cymbalist had launched a startup called Clippership. The company's first ship is being built in the Netherlands this year. Without the accelerator, he says, the company likely wouldn't exist.
Startup companies
fromNature
1 month ago

NIH rolls back red tape on some experiments - spurring excitement and concern

Many researchers are surprised and relieved over an unusual step taken by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH): the agency is rolling back the red tape on a host of basic-science experiments that involved human participants and had been classified as clinical trials. The decision, which was announced on 29 January and is part of a broader NIH effort to reduce administrative burden, should free such research from the heavy bureaucratic requirements that are designed for clinical trials but are sometimes ill-suited to other fields, such as basic psychology and behavioural studies.
Medicine
fromBreaking Defense
2 months ago

Pentagon CTO offers industry free use of 400 patents from gov't labs - for a start - Breaking Defense

Step one, effective immediately, is to make roughly 400 carefully picked patents available online for a free two-year trial period. Specifically, any company that wants to try out one of the 400 technologies in its own research, development, and products can get what's called a Commercial Evaluation License (CEL) without the usual fee. Those 400 technologies- everything from a Navy-developed drone tracking system to novel Army mortar fuses - were chosen out of the thousands of possibilities by Michael's staff.
Washington DC
#nih
Public health
fromArs Technica
1 month ago

Trump admin is "destroying medical research," Senate report finds

Widespread NIH leadership vacancies and expiring advisory committees threaten grant approvals; nominee Bhattacharya gave equivocal vaccine-autism answers, raising concerns about anti-vaccine influence.
fromNature
1 month ago

AI help in grant proposals tied to higher funding odds at NIH

Scientists are increasingly turning to artificial-intelligence systems for help drafting the grant proposals that fund their careers, but preliminary data indicate that these tools might be pulling the focus of research towards safe, less-innovative ideas. These data provide evidence that AI-assisted proposals submitted to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) are consistently less distinct from previous research than ones written without the use of AI - and are also slightly more likely to be funded.
Artificial intelligence
fromFast Company
2 months ago

Entrepreneurs take notice: Uncle Sam wants a piece of your startup

The federal government signaled a new direction in federal funding this week when it announced plans to put as much as $150 million into a private semiconductor startup. Instead of a grant or a loan, the government would take an equity stake. It's a meaningful departure from how federal funding has traditionally operated. For years, federal R&D support came structured as non-dilutive grants and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards that didn't require equity concessions.
Venture
Science
fromFlowingData
2 months ago

Cuts to science and research in the U.S. over the past year

Administration cuts to science funding, grant withholding, and elimination of research jobs caused a sharp decline in government science agency staffing.
fromTheregister
2 months ago

Turns out AI agents are good for something: science

"We didn't do any LLMs. There is significant interest in that. There are lots of people trying those ideas out, but I think they're still in the exploratory phase," Desai told El Reg. As it turned out, the researchers didn't need them. "We used a simpler model called a variational auto encoder (VAE). This model was established in 2013. It's one of the early generative models," Desai said.
US politics
fromNextgov.com
2 months ago

Tech Bills of the Week: Expanding AI education via NSF; Commerce public awareness campaign; and more

Congressional proposals seek to expand AI education access, launch a national AI public-awareness campaign, and require age verification protections for chatbot users.
Science
fromNextgov.com
2 months ago

Getting quantum tech from research to commercialization requires partnership, federal experts say

Stronger government-private coordination is required to translate quantum research into commercial applications amid growing investment and technological challenges.
US politics
fromNextgov.com
2 months ago

Trump administration gets less tech funding than requested in new bicameral bills

Congressional negotiators reduced funding for the Information Technology Oversight and Reform account and provided $8 million instead of the administration's requested $19.6 million.
Science
fromNature
1 month ago

Science funding needs fixing - but not through chaotic reforms

UK research funding is shifting to a top-down, industrially aligned model, creating uncertainty and risking harm to curiosity-driven science, small groups, and future leaders.
US politics
fromNextgov.com
2 months ago

NDAA: Massive expansion of commercial solutions openings and other key takeaways for defense contractors

The 2026 NDAA expands CSO use and OTAs to speed commercial entry into defense while reducing contractor compliance burdens.
fromBig Think
2 months ago

The four paths forward for US scientists in 2026

For nearly 100 years, the United States has been the world's leader in a wide variety of scientific fields. No other country has: invested as much in fundamental scientific research, has made more scientific breakthroughs and scientific advances, has attracted more scientific researchers to move there to conduct their research, or has conducted more projects and been home to more scientists that have won Nobel Prizes.
Science
US politics
fromNature
2 months ago

US science in 2026: five themes that will dominate Trump's second year

Federal science funding and governance face continued uncertainty as administration policies, legal challenges, and Congressional actions will shape research support in 2026.
Science
fromwww.scientificamerican.com
2 months ago

Americans Overwhelmingly Support Science, but Some Think the U.S. Is Lagging Behind

A majority of Americans value U.S. scientific leadership, but Democrats increasingly believe the country is losing ground while Republicans view scientific standing more positively.
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