The Consortium of Social Science Associations held its Annual Colloquium on Social And Behavioral Sciences and Public Policy earlier this week.  Amongst the speakers was Acting National Science Foundation (NSF) Director Cora Marrett.* As part of her remarks, she addressed how the Foundation was implementing the Coburn Amendment, which added additional criteria to funding political science research projects through NSF.

The first batch of reviews subject to these new requirements tookplace in early 2013.  In addition to the usual criteria of intellectual merit and broader impacts, the reviewers looked at the ‘most meritorious’ proposals and examined how they contribute to economic development and/or national security.  For the reviews scheduled for early 2014, all three ‘criteria’ will be reviewed at once.

Since researchers don’t like to be told what to do, they aren’t happy.  But Marrett asserts through her remarks that this additional review will not really affect the…