R-E-S-P-E-C-T (NSF ain’t got)

Former NSF policy insider Joel Widder’s new take on NSF’s problems here. In his excellent piece, he argues that NSF has lost both “agency” and respect from its sister government agencies. That may be why NSF’s Brian Stone released this document here yesterday. My sense is that the current NSF non-boss bosses are doing their level best to define some lanes that still belong to the Agency, notably the STEM pipeline and curiosity-based science in some core areas subject to a version of ‘portfolio management’ that is blurred sufficiently to pass muster with OSTP and the community.