In a radical break with tradition, the National Science Foundation (NSF) this week began to search through billions of dollars of grants the agency has already awarded for anything touching on topics that President Donald Trump has criticized. And NSF has blocked grantees and trainees from accessing funds while the review is underway, wreaking havoc across the academic research community.

A 29 January notice on NSF’s website appears to put the burden on institutions to identify and then halt any NSF-funded research that clashes with the executive orders. “All NSF grantees must comply with these executive orders, and any other relevant executive orders issued, by ceasing all noncompliant grant and award activities,” it states, reinforcing the existing requirement that grant recipients must abide by all the “terms and conditions” of the grant. NSF declined a request from Science to explain how its vetting relates to what it expects grantees to do and whether projects that have been flagged will be canceled and their unspent balances returned to the government.

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