Hi, I'm Iraflato, and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today on the podcast, the ongoing saga of federal science research funding.

Earlier this year, Congress pushed back on White House attempts to slash funding for many research programs,

and it restored that funding in the budget. But the process is

still not operating normally. Here's one example. What is currently happening is unusual in that

the budget has passed, but from what we understand, the federal agencies have not yet been given

the money in order to then give us the money.

We have over 50 proposals that have been pending since March of 2025 that we're waiting to hear the results of.

People have been told that they will get the money and they're just waiting and it hasn't happened.

And there are more cases where the proposals are still

in this pending stage where they have gone through review, they have gone through the panel,

and the money is just not flowing out the door of the different agencies. That's Dr. Anachahar,

vice president for research at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington.

She says her institution is waiting to hear about some $20 million in funds that are not flowing out the door,

which has implications for the next generation of scientists.

The problem with the money not flowing at a regular pace is that we have to plan several

years in advance for not only the research that we're doing, but also for the training

of the next generation of scientists. You can imagine that waiting up to a year or more to

find out if that funding is coming in really impacts the pace of our

research, but even more so it impacts the hiring of students or postdocs because that only

happens once a year. And so the uncertainty and the waiting is really, really difficult and

the inability to know whether we will be able to fund someone for several years

...