This is the clearest single-page diagnostic I've seen of the FY26 obligation gap, and ScienceSpending.org is a civic gift. It reminded me of Ben Reinhardt's "Research Has Customers" essay. whose work you've reprinted before, so I suspect he's on your radar, and that maybe you are planning to publish content in a group; good idea! Reading the two in the same week is productively uncomfortable.
Just in case I'm wrong: Ben argues the Endless Frontier paradigm has expired, and researchers must reckon with research as a product someone has to actually want to buy. Jordan's post identifies something Ben's framework doesn't quite reach: the customer is there, Congress is paying, and the gap is downstream, in the executive branch's ability (or willingness) to obligate the funds. Ben's cellular-metabolism metaphor for science is well chosen here: what Jordan has documented is a specific enzyme failure upstream of the work anyone can do at the bench, with cascading consequences for every niche in the ecosystem. NCI, at 79% behind on new grants, is not a demand-side problem. It's metabolic acidosis.
From Belgium, I'd gently push on one assumption in both pieces: this is not a US federal problem. It's a public-research-infrastructure problem. I watch the same dynamic at my own university here — well-meaning but often fragmented, overwhelmed support administration on one side; well-meaning but overwhelmed, quietly-hiding researchers on the other; and a resource envelope that is officially "underfunded" in ways that obscure how much of the dysfunction may actually be plumbing, not purse. I've been working on the governance and tooling side of that problem locally, and the solutions exist. They just aren't federal, and they aren't waiting for anyone's appropriation. What I'd love to see — and what Jordan's tracker is a beautiful start at — is a comparable metabolic diagnostic for institutional obligation gaps in public universities, on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. The customer question and the delivery question are the same question asked from opposite ends of the plumbing.
This was a really interesting, albeit concerning, read about something I don’t often see spoken about!
Thanks for keeping an eye on this! Here is my breakdown of why this is happening at NIH: https://elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/the-executive-orders-blocking-your
This is the clearest single-page diagnostic I've seen of the FY26 obligation gap, and ScienceSpending.org is a civic gift. It reminded me of Ben Reinhardt's "Research Has Customers" essay. whose work you've reprinted before, so I suspect he's on your radar, and that maybe you are planning to publish content in a group; good idea! Reading the two in the same week is productively uncomfortable.
Just in case I'm wrong: Ben argues the Endless Frontier paradigm has expired, and researchers must reckon with research as a product someone has to actually want to buy. Jordan's post identifies something Ben's framework doesn't quite reach: the customer is there, Congress is paying, and the gap is downstream, in the executive branch's ability (or willingness) to obligate the funds. Ben's cellular-metabolism metaphor for science is well chosen here: what Jordan has documented is a specific enzyme failure upstream of the work anyone can do at the bench, with cascading consequences for every niche in the ecosystem. NCI, at 79% behind on new grants, is not a demand-side problem. It's metabolic acidosis.
From Belgium, I'd gently push on one assumption in both pieces: this is not a US federal problem. It's a public-research-infrastructure problem. I watch the same dynamic at my own university here — well-meaning but often fragmented, overwhelmed support administration on one side; well-meaning but overwhelmed, quietly-hiding researchers on the other; and a resource envelope that is officially "underfunded" in ways that obscure how much of the dysfunction may actually be plumbing, not purse. I've been working on the governance and tooling side of that problem locally, and the solutions exist. They just aren't federal, and they aren't waiting for anyone's appropriation. What I'd love to see — and what Jordan's tracker is a beautiful start at — is a comparable metabolic diagnostic for institutional obligation gaps in public universities, on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. The customer question and the delivery question are the same question asked from opposite ends of the plumbing.