The National Science Foundation is planning new rules that would effectively cut off most collaboration between its grantees and Chinese scientists. Under the proposed policy, any US researcher receiving NSF funding would be barred from working with institutions or individuals on the agency's restricted list — which includes dozens of Chinese universities, labs, and research institutes.
Even if Chinese partners don't receive direct NSF funding, merely participating in a NSF-funded project could be enough to trigger the ban. US scientists would also be prohibited from holding positions at restricted Chinese institutions or accepting any research support from them. According to Science magazine, the rules could bring the majority of NSF-funded cooperation with Chinese researchers to a halt.
Historically, NSF evaluated collaboration risks on a case-by-case basis. The new approach would shift to an outright ban based on an institution's inclusion on a government list. To protect their funding, US universities are likely to voluntarily scale back partnerships with Chinese institutions, making the real-world impact potentially broader than the policy's official scope.
For now, the restrictions only apply to NSF-funded projects — not a blanket ban on all US-China scientific collaboration. But the US government is pushing for wider rules that would cover all federal research dollars. The decoupling of US and Chinese science, already underway in chips and AI, could soon spread to foundational fields like materials science, physics, and climate research.