By Kritika Agarwal
Last week, more than 170 business leaders (including private-sector company executives, startup founders, presidents of local and regional chambers of commerce, and venture capitalists) from across the United States sent a letter to House and Senate appropriators urging Congress to sustain funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF).
“The agency’s investments are vital for maintaining American scientific leadership – and in many instances have proven critical for our own success as innovators, investors, and job creators,” they noted.
The NSF has been a leading source of funding for research in science and engineering for 75 years. The agency embodies the idea that federally funded research conducted at universities can push the frontiers of science and innovation in a way no other system can.
The business leaders’ letter detailed how public investments in basic science, made through the NSF, have driven business productivity, created a highly skilled workforce, and given rise to sectors that contribute trillions of dollars to the U.S. economy. For example, the letter noted, NSF investments helped drive the development of both the internet and artificial intelligence.
The letter also highlighted how the NSF actively partners with industry through initiatives such as the Regional Innovation Engines program and the Engineering Research Centers, which have “yielded hundreds of spinoff companies, supported students, and added more than $50 billion in economic value.”
Industry has also benefited immensely from the skilled workforce that NSF investments have helped develop. NSF-funded students and researchers often go on to work in industry or begin innovative startups. Indeed, the NSF “funded the graduate students who went on to found Google,” the letter noted.
Despite its outsized contributions to our nation, the NSF currently faces an uncertain future – the Trump administration is proposing to cut the agency’s budget by 56% in the 2026 fiscal year. While the Senate Appropriations Committee rejected the administration’s proposal and advanced a bill that would keep the agency’s budget flat for FY26, the House Appropriations Committee has approved a bill that would cut the agency by 23%. (A clear picture of the agency’s final FY26 budget will only emerge once Congress has completed the appropriations process.)
Keeping the NSF fully funded is vital if the United States is to compete with China. As business leaders noted in the letter, the NSF has most excelled in fields (such as robotics, materials, quantum communications, and AI) where “China is now a clear technological rival.”
The business leaders urged Congress to sustain NSF funding in FY26, noting: “If the United States wishes to sustain its ability to compete globally while continuing to reap the rewards proffered by innovation in the long run, it needs a strong and thriving NSF.”
Kritika Agarwal is assistant vice president for communications at AAU.