Judge blocks Trump administration's cuts to National Science Foundation research

BOSTON — A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from making drastic cuts to research funding provided by the National Science Foundation.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston struck down on Friday a policy change that could have stripped universities of tens of millions of dollars in research funding. The universities argued the move threatened critical work in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, semiconductors and other technology fields.

Talwani said the change, announced by the NSF in May, was arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law.

An email Saturday to the NSF was not immediately returned.

At issue are “indirect” costs, expenses such as building maintenance and computer systems that aren’t linked directly to a specific project. Currently, the NSF determines each grant recipient’s indirect costs individually and is supposed to cover actual expenses.

The Trump administration has dismissed indirect expenses as “overhead” and capped them for future awards by the NSF to universities at 15% of the funding for direct research costs.

The University of California, one of the plaintiffs, estimated the change would cost it just under $100 million a year.

Judges have blocked similar caps that the Trump administration placed on grants by the Energy Department and the National Institutes of Health.