July 7, 2026

Urgent: Defend Federal SCI Research Integrity

Jake Beckstrom

The Federal Government’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is proposing new rules for how they review, prioritize, and disburse federal grants. This will affect both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense’s Spinal Cord Injury Research Program (SCIRP). There is strong consensus across the scientific and advocacy communities that this proposed rule will have a significant negative impact on SCI research going forward. 

It is imperative that you and everyone you know in the spinal cord injury community push back against these proposals by writing a public comment on the government’s webpage here. We must argue forcefully against many of these changes. The deadline for public comment is Monday, July 13, 2026, so please raise your voice before this date.
 

Left to right: Bethany Sullivan (SCI/D), Sasha Rabchevsky (SCI/Researcher) and Andrew Stewart (Researcher) at U2FP's Capital Roll on February 17, 2026.

The negative effects these rules will have on SCI research are honestly too many to list in this newsletter. U2FP has been reviewing the full proposal alongside our coalition of partner SCI organizations over the past several weeks. We have collaboratively agreed upon a few key areas that deserve comments from everyone:

• Political Appointee Oversight 200.205: This gives political appointees (instead of scientists) oversight on which grants move forward. It runs counter to the standard of scientific practice that seeks to establish objective and unbiased methods. Additionally, adding a political appointee is inefficient and will slow the process down. This puts important projects at risk if the awards are not disbursed by the end of the fiscal calendar. It adds an unnecessary layer to a granting timeline that is already tight. This section also states that peer review recommendations "remain advisory and are not ministerially ratified, routinely deferred to, or otherwise treated as de facto binding." This means that political appointees will be prohibited from explicitly deferring to scientific peer reviewers. Obviously, political appointees do not possess the same scientific expertise that a researcher or PI has gained over years or decades in their specific field.
   
• Peer Review 200.340: Describes a new authority to terminate active grants at any time and without cause. This would supersede checks and balances that are already in place and subject all research projects and labs to a great deal of unwarranted insecurity.
   
• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility 200.300: Limiting the research questions that can be asked. Accessibility remains highly undefined in the federal register, putting the SCI community at risk of losing the little influence we have on prioritizing translational research. Do we really believe that limiting research questions about access to public health is in our best interest?
   
• Broad Prohibition on International Scientific Collaboration 200.220: Challenging but worth noting that in the small SCI scientific research community, collaboration across borders is critical and has been historically beneficial (SCI ODC, Neuromodulation and many other collaborations). Robust science requires collaboration and cross-pollination between scientists, labs, and different stakeholders. This section will calcify institutions and labs into the silos in which we have been trying to dismantle for the past several years.

Please please please submit a comment. Our community cannot afford to stay silent about these changes. This B.I.O.N.I.C. Lab article quotes a NIH program officer: "Silence will be inferred as support."
 

Commenting Tips
Don’t copy and paste the above explanations (use your own words) and refrain from emotional or political language that includes partisan buzz words. Do not include identifying details about yourself that you don't wish to be made public.

Comment for Maximum Effect

• When you write your comment, follow these instructions: “Begin each point with the relevant section number in brackets, as the Federal Register notice instructs (e.g., "[200.205] The mandatory pre-issuance review by political appointees conflicts with..."). This ensures your comment is cataloged correctly.” (From the Guide for writing an effective comment: https://www.bioniclab.org/news/OMB)
   
• For a great overview of all of the proposed changes, and suggested comments, please take a look at this B.I.O.N.I.C. Lab article.
   
• If you want to read the original OMB Draft: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance
   

Thank you all for your continued advocacy! This may seem like a mundane task, but we must be vigilant to threats like this proposed rule which jeopardizes SCI research.

As members of the SCI community, it is up to us to fight for the integrity of functional recovery research and a cure for paralysis.