Navigating Changing Federal Priorities for STEM, Public Engagement, and Education

originally published 2025
revised January 26, 2026

Many federal programs have undergone significant transitions as federal agencies align with the priorities of the new federal administration. These changes have already led to major reductions in ongoing scientific research, public engagement in STEM, and educational programs. In addition to federal staff reductions, there have been sudden terminations of existing awarded grants and the “archiving” of active solicitations. 

You may find the the following resources helpful as you are adapting to rapid changes and uncertainty related to federal administration priorities:

News from trusted sources:

• STEM Ecosystems recordings of The STEM Talk: Your 30-Minute, Monthly STEM Pulse Check
• Afterschool Alliance Current Policy Landscape
• American Institute of Physics FYI Science Policy News
• American Alliance of Museums (AAM) Center for the Future of Museums Blog
• Save NSF coalition resources
• The Planetary Society space policy news
• American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• National Council of Nonprofits
  • Insights and Analyses
  • Executive Orders
• Nonprofit Quarterly
• The Chronicle of Higher Education
• The Hechinger Report education updates

Executive orders and reorganizations

• White House presidential actions and executive orders
  • EducationCounsel’s Summary and Analysis of Executive Actions Impacting Education
    • Executive actions chart
  • Inside Higher Ed legal challenges tracker
• Department of Education changes
  • TIES STEM Ecosystems
    How the 2025 federal restructuring reshapes STEM pathways

Museum interpretation and science communication

• White House presidential actions and executive orders
  • Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History (March 2025)
  • Making America Beautiful Again by Improving Our National Parks (July 2025)
• Guidance
  • American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) resources (see left navigation Further Resources)
  • American Historical Association
  • American Alliance of Museums statement
• Documentation efforts
  • Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian volunteer documentation effort 
    https://www.citizenhistorians.org
  • National Park Service volunteer documentation effort 
    https://sites.google.com/umn.edu/save-our-signs/home
  • Missing Park History
    https://missingparkhistory.org/

Federal budgets

• American Institute of Physics (AIP) - Federal Science Budget Tracker 
  https://www.aip.org/fyi/budget-tracker
• Afterschool Alliance - Federal budget news and resources 
  https://www.afterschoolalliance.org/policy-current.cfm

Sharing stories of impact

• Assessing the impacts of federal policies on the US STEMM community
• Illustrated stories of scientists impacted by federal budget cuts
• American Institute of Physics stories of impacts

Federal grant and contract terminations

• Grant Witness https://grant-witness.us/ tracking NSF and NIH grants
• The Impact Project collects, synthesizes, and visualizes data on federal changes and their localized effects
  • Impact Map https://theimpactproject.org/the-impact-map/
  • Dashboards https://theimpactproject.org/dashboards/
• NASA terminated grants from the Planetary Society

Advice about federal grant or contract termination

• American Association of University Professors: Understanding the Law and Policies for Grant Terminations for the National Science Foundation
• American Alliance of Museums (AAM) advice
• American Alliance of Museums (AAM) more actions
• National Council of Noprofits
• Holland & Knight