One of the explicit goals of the NSF is to train the next generation of scientists. Part of that is making sure that you're creating a rich pipeline of people who are going to do innovative things. Broadening participation is much more about things like getting more (usually younger) people from all walks of life interested in joining your field. Which is basically an unmitigated good -- first, the obvious advantage that having more people who want to be in a field is good for it from the perspective of choosing the best folks. And second, the less obvious but perhaps more important thing that people with different perspectives often end up thinking about problems differently. It's not nearly as helpful to have 1000 people all focused on chasing the same problems with the same toolbox of solutions as it is to have 1000 people focused on different problems with different ideas of how to approach them.

I say this as a professor at a top computer science department. I have _never_ felt limited in my ability to collaborate with the best folks in my area. Ever. I do! And it's great! And I also believe strongly it's important to make sure we are growing those next generations of amazing people, because the thing that makes research awesome is working with them.

You are misreading how Broader Impacts (BI) works. From your link:

> Some examples that illustrate contributions in each of the five areas are given below. Proposals need not address all of these areas, and PIs are advised to focus on those areas in which they are well prepared to make meaningful contributions.

"Broadening participation of underrepresented groups" is only one of the five areas, and no proposal was required to use it. I had proposals funded that focused on workforce development, for example. I saw others focus on science communication to the public (now forbidden in the memo this post is about!).

Proposals that passed grant panels were first and foremost always those that would great science. At ~10:1 oversubscription rates or more, proposals don't pass without it. The BI component needed to be credible but could be handled lots of ways.

Fundamentally, Congress recognized when defining BI as a component for merit review in the NSF that fundamental science only pays off in the long term. BI is a pragmatic choice to ensure that grants also yield near-term benefits to society as well.

> "[broaden the] participation of underrepresented groups". [1] As if seeking out the best of the best to collaborate with... was somehow undesirable.

Are those mutually exclusive? I know that's a common argument, but it doesn't track to me. Finding the diamonds in the rough in underrepresented groups is part of finding the best of the best to collaborate with.

Ah, the ever present “nothing to see here” take. What this government is doing is worse than it’s ever been. At least before when you had your grant it wouldn’t be randomly cancelled at any time.

Government, and taxation/subsidies in general, have and always will be a tool to encourage one thing and discourage the other.

A lot of research won't be profitable for years to come or is even unlikely to be profitable at all, so you funding sources are limited. The government, having no profit motive, can encourage this kind of research by funding it. Typically the hope is that it'll lead to increased productivity or innovation down the line.

You don't have to be a statistician to see that not all groups of the populace are represented equally among scholars. If you want all viewpoints covered from you populace, wouldn't that mean you want to try and push for inclusion there? That doesn't mean everything has to be inclusive but you sure can incentivize it

> As if seeking out the best of the best to collaborate with, independent of their checkboxes, was somehow undesirable

The best of the best involves people from underrepresented groups. These policies exist to counteract the cronyism and “doesn’t look like me”-ism inherent to the way people make choices. We know people don’t hire and collaborate with the best of the best, because when looking for the best they see it easiest in people with similar backgrounds and perspectives as themselves.

It’s a shame the culture war cooked your brain on this one.

It’s much cleaner now. “How does your work financially benefit the principal or his cronies? Dude, are you buying a Dell?”

Broader Impacts sections can be quite, well broad.

You can put in there standard things like “we will design new grad and undergrad courses that train new students in this tech that we will develop”.

You can put wider-impact things like “we will partner with local community colleges to integrate the results of this research in their XYZ course”, or “we will design summer research programs with recruitment from community colleges”.

And yes, you can (or used to be able to) include things like “we will partner with high schools with high populations of underrepresented demographics to do outreach and involve students in research”.

Clearly, there’s a large variety of things that fall under broader impact, and scientists weren’t required to pick only the “wokest” policies.

Please don’t comment on things you don’t know much about.