A sweeping travel freeze at the National Science Foundation is preventing staff members from carrying out some of their basic responsibilities, according to internal agency documents and those involved in the program.
It’s threatening to drive out some of NSF’s top scientific talent.
Concerns center on a special category of NSF staff members known as rotators — a couple of hundred academics serving temporary stints at the foundation while on loan from their home institutions. They represent around 10 percent of the NSF’s roughly 1,700 employees.
Rotators may stay anywhere from one to four years and typically serve as temporary program directors across a wide range of scientific disciplines — from climate research to theoretical mathematics. Their responsibilities include everything from reviewing grant proposals to advising researchers interested in NSF funding.
