"NIH, NASA grantees are confused and concerned amid agencies’ piecemeal communication"
"Grants managers at two of the U.S. government’s largest funders of scientific research have recently placed unprecedented limitations on the ability of U.S. scientists to publish with co-authors from other countries, researchers say. Units of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are privately directing grantees to request permission in advance for any co-authorship with a scholar affiliated with a foreign institution, even if all the work was done in the United States. NASA, meanwhile, is reportedly telling some grantees that papers co-authored with researchers in China may have violated its rules.
Neither agency has publicly issued new formal guidance describing these requirements. Instead, officials are informing grantees individually, leaving researchers confused and concerned. In several cases, NIH grantees say they have been asked to remove published papers with foreign co-authors from annual progress reports to the agency. Observers say the policy creates an incentive to preemptively remove foreign co-authors from forthcoming papers.
At NIH, co-authorship by scientists with foreign affiliations—including ones working at U.S. institutions—has historically been accepted, and relatively common: According to the most recent analysis available, 30% of papers produced with NIH funding in 2017 had both U.S. and non-U.S. authors. Some oversight of these collaborations for national security considerations is reasonable, says Tobin Smith, senior vice president at the Association of American Universities, a group of leading research institutions. “You’ve got to assess the risk in each collaboration.” But, he says, “I worry, based upon what we’re hearing, that agencies are now shifting to a blanket mode, and it’s more about who you publish with than what science you are actually publishing. And that will hurt science.”"
Jeffrey Brainard reports for Science May 20, 2026.
