What OSTP released on July 21, 2026
On July 21, 2026, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) published Science: A New Golden Age, a 123-page report to the President authored by OSTP Director Michael Kratsios. The White House’s own announcement frames it as “the first comprehensive rethinking of the U.S. science and technology enterprise in over 80 years” since Vannevar Bush’s 1945 report Science, the Endless Frontier. That comparison is the administration’s own characterization, not an independent historical assessment — research administrators should read it as framing, not a neutral judgment.
The report was paired with a Fiscal Year 2028 R&D Priorities Memorandum, co-signed by Kratsios and OMB Director Russ Vought, that converts the report’s recommendations into directives for federal departments and agencies. Per the White House announcement, federal R&D agencies must submit implementation action plans within 90 days of release — a concrete near-term deadline (roughly mid-October 2026) for agency response, even though the recommendations themselves are not self-executing statute or regulation.
The core shift: funding individual researchers over institutions
The report recommends the federal R&D enterprise “refocus support on individual scientists rather than legacy institutions.” For grants offices, this is a stated policy direction, not yet a change to any specific funding instrument — as of this report’s release, NIH, NSF, and other major research funders have not announced revised award mechanisms implementing it. What it does signal is where FY2028 budget requests, agency implementation plans (due within the 90-day window above), and future funding-opportunity announcements are likely to move: toward award structures that follow a named investigator more directly, and away from mechanisms that route funding primarily through institutional overhead and indirect-cost structures. Grants administrators should track agency-level implementation guidance as it’s issued rather than assume any particular grant mechanism has already changed.
Diversifying funding beyond peer review
The report also calls on agencies to “diversify funding mechanisms beyond slow consensus peer review.” The primary source does not specify a single replacement mechanism — it states a direction (reduce reliance on multi-reviewer consensus panels of the kind used in NIH study sections and NSF panel review) rather than naming which alternative model each agency will formally adopt. Discussions elsewhere in federal science policy in 2026 have floated options such as partial randomization among proposals in a fundable range, streamlined review for smaller awards, and expanded program-officer discretion, but none of those specifics appear as enacted agency policy in the report or memorandum itself. Grants administrators should treat “peer review is being replaced” as premature — what’s confirmed is a stated intent to expand beyond it, not a specific new review mechanism that has taken effect.
Genesis Mission: more than $5 billion committed for AI-for-science
The report designates the Genesis Mission — a national AI-for-science initiative established by a presidential executive order in November 2025 — as its “flagship” AI initiative and calls for it to be fully funded and scaled. On July 22, 2026, the White House followed up with a separate announcement committing more than $5 billion in federal funding to the Genesis Mission, contributed across more than 15 federal agencies including the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Transportation, and the Interior, plus NASA and NSF, spanning healthcare, energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and national-security applications. The Department of Energy separately reported selecting 278 funded research projects from more than 5,000 applications under the initiative — described as the largest response to any DOE funding opportunity in the department’s history.
Worth distinguishing precisely: the Genesis Mission itself is not new — it dates to the November 2025 executive order. What’s new with this report and its July 22 follow-on announcement is the commitment to fully fund and scale it, and the public dollar figure (more than $5 billion) now attached to that commitment.
Confirmed policy vs. stated direction
Federal grants-management readers will reasonably want to know what has actually taken effect versus what is proposed. As of this report’s release:
Confirmed / enacted: the report and FY2028 R&D Priorities Memorandum have been published; the Genesis Mission funding commitment (more than $5 billion across 15+ agencies) has been announced; DOE has already selected 278 funded projects under the Genesis Mission; agencies are under a formal 90-day requirement to submit implementation action plans.
Stated direction, not yet enacted: the specific redesign of any individual award mechanism to favor researchers over institutions; any specific replacement for consensus peer review at a named agency; changes to indirect-cost or facilities-and-administrative (F&A) rate treatment; and any binding regulatory or Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200) changes flowing from the report. None of these appear as finalized rules in the report or memorandum itself — they are recommendations awaiting agency implementation.
What this means for grants administrators
- Watch the 90-day window. Agency implementation action plans are due roughly mid-October 2026 and are where mechanism-level specifics (funding opportunity terms, review-process changes, award-structure redesigns) will actually surface.
- Monitor FY2028 budget justifications from your institution’s primary federal sponsors for early signals of how “refocus on individual scientists” and “diversify beyond peer review” get operationalized agency by agency — these recommendations do not apply uniformly, and different agencies are likely to interpret them differently.
- Track Genesis Mission funding opportunities across the 15+ participating agencies (DOE, NSF, NASA, DOD, HHS, DOT, Interior, and others) if your institution does AI-adjacent research — this is the one area of the report with a concrete, already-committed dollar figure rather than a stated intent.
- Don’t restructure PI-vs-institution assumptions yet. Nothing in the report or memorandum itself directly amends award terms, indirect-cost rates, or 2 CFR 200 requirements — those changes, if they come, will arrive through the normal agency rulemaking and guidance process, not through this document alone.
See CASRAI’s grants management and research funding hub for related coverage of federal funding-lifecycle mechanics.
How this differs from OSTP’s 2025 “gold standard science” policy
This report should not be confused with the Trump administration’s earlier May 2025 executive order on “restoring gold standard science,” which addressed scientific-integrity and reproducibility standards for federally funded and federally conducted research — a different policy track focused on research conduct and evidence quality, not R&D funding structure. “Science: A New Golden Age” and the FY2028 R&D Priorities Memorandum are a later, broader document concerned with how federal R&D dollars are allocated and structured across agencies, not with scientific-integrity standards. Grants administrators tracking both should treat them as related but distinct workstreams.
Frequently asked questions
Is “Science: A New Golden Age” an executive order?
No. It is a 123-page report to the President from OSTP, paired with an interagency FY2028 R&D Priorities Memorandum. It carries real policy weight as an administration directive to federal agencies, but it is not itself statutory or regulatory text — its recommendations become binding as agencies convert them into rules, guidance, or funding-opportunity terms.
Does this change how NIH or NSF review grant applications right now?
Not automatically, and not yet. Agencies have 90 days from the report’s release to submit implementation action plans. Specific changes to award mechanisms, review processes, or indirect-cost treatment will appear in agency-level guidance and funding-opportunity announcements as they are issued, not in the report or memorandum itself.
What is the Genesis Mission, and is it new?
The Genesis Mission is a national AI-for-science initiative established by a presidential executive order in November 2025, not something newly created by this report. What is new is the FY2028 memorandum’s commitment to fully fund and scale it, and the more than $5 billion in federal funding commitments across 15+ agencies announced on July 22, 2026.
Where can I read the report and memorandum directly?
The full report is posted at whitehouse.gov, and the White House’s announcements of both the report and the Genesis Mission funding commitment are on the official White House releases page — primary sources are the most reliable place to check specific agency-level claims as implementation plans are published over the following months.
