Interim NSF Leadership Briefs NSB on Reorganization
The National Science Board (NSB), the governing and oversight body of the National Science Foundation (NSF), met on February 25. The agenda included a briefing on NSF’s new “management structure,” presented by Brian Stone, who is performing the duties of the NSF Director, and Micah Cheatham, NSF’s Chief Management Officer.
The speakers discussed recent efforts to reduce the NSF workforce in response to White House guidance and executive orders on “optimizing the federal workforce.” In addition to reductions in force (RIFs) taken over the last year, NSF’s efforts have focused on reducing the ratio of executives to non-executives within the workforce, adding non-executive supervisors, and reducing the number of layers between the NSF Director and front-line staff. This has included changes in the roles of IPAs, or “rotators,” across the Foundation.
They also discussed what they called “common sense changes to reduce the workload,” including plans to consolidate research solicitations from over 200 to less than 100. This action has been hinted at during previous NSF events, but details remain sparse.
Little public information is available related to the topics discussed by Stone and Cheatham. Both have said that the move of NSF to its new location in Alexandria, VA is taking precedence and impacting the timing of some of the other topics discussed.