Arizona State University electrical engineer Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan is the likely nominee to replace France Córdova as director of the National Science Foundation once Córdova’s six-year appointment ends next year

The National Science Foundation, the premiere funder of basic social and behavioral research in the United States, will see a 2.5% increase in funding in the upcoming fiscal year.

The National Science Foundation, the largest government funder of basic social and behavioral research in the United States, is changing how it “positions” some of its research programs in those fields. While the changes are meant to better highlight the value of social science, not everyone is pleased by the changes.

UPDATED: The U.S. Senate committee that oversees funding for the National Science Foundation, and with that most of the federal money spent on basic social and behavioral science research, today approved a 2020 budget that increases NSF spending by $242 million compared to the current fiscal year. The bill must still pass the full Senate, and be reconciled with a more generous House version.

The U.S. National Science Foundation has followed other research-based government agencies in trying to ring-fence American research from collaborative and acquisitive foreign actors. Could they mean China?

The two federal agencies that spend the most on making grants to social and behavioral science research in the United States, both have their budgets shaved by an eighth in the Fiscal Year 2020 budget proposal released by the Trump administration earlier this month. But the move is more symbolic than substantive.

The final agreement ending the most recent U.S. government shutdown provides $8.1 billion for the National Science Foundation, a $301 million increase over the amount appropriated in fiscal year 2018.

Even if Congress and the president succeed in breaking the logjam and approve the remaining fiscal year 2019 appropriations bills, the new Congress will find itself significantly behind schedule in the fiscal year 2020 budget and appropriations cycle. The president’s budget, which is usually delivered to Congress in early February, will likely be delayed by a month, and perhaps longer if another partial shutdown occurs on February 16. House and Senate appropriations committees typically set deadlines for requests by this time in the year, but that process is not even close to starting because of the shutdown.

During this U.S government partial shutdown, agencies including the NSF, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Parks Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and NOAA have had to stop most work. Surely that can’t be beneficial …

When the National Science Foundation tabbed Arthur “Skip” Lupia to head its Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE), it was making a statement whether it meant to or not. Lupia, officially the Hal R. Varian Collegiate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, has been one of social science’s ablest defenders — and occasional critics.

Noted science communicator and political scientist Arthur ‘Skip’ Lupia will take the reins of the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences starting in September.

For the first time since 2005, a social scientist has won the Alan T. Waterman Award, the nation’s highest honor for early career scientists and engineers bestowed by the U.S. National Science Foundation.