The newly proposed changes to the guidance for federal grantmaking—sweeping changes that would inject unprecedented amounts of political involvement into the awarding and management of federal research grants—are a threat to all research, including humanities research, write AHA executive director Sarah Weicksel and AHA Professional Division vice president Karin Wulf (John Carter Brown Library).
Although the conversation around the OMB changes has largely focused on threats to science research, Weicksel and Wulf write in their article for the Scholarly Kitchen, the proposed guidance also threatens the integrity of humanities research, including “three sections in particular [that] undermine the foundation of historical work in expert, peer reviewed research and scholarship.” The changes would “severely diminish” the expertise that historians and all researchers bring to the grantmaking process in favor of evaluation under a politicized framework conducted by a political appointee.
These proposed changes represent yet another example of the “intensifying threat from federal government intervention” that history is under, and would “erode our ability to meaningfully serve the public interest—which is always best served by the most complete and fully researched historical accounts.”
The AHA has submitted a public comment on the proposed revision and encourages all historians to do the same.