[jasonhong]

Having served on several NSF review panels, NSF (and academia in general) manages conflicts of interest rather seriously. You cannot review proposals if you have collaborated with any of the investigators of a proposal within the past few years (the time is well defined but I don't recall what it is off the top of my head).

Also, NSF program officers can have conflicts as well, for example if you are on leave from a university then you can't be heading a review panel that has any grants related to that university.

At my university, we also have to do periodic online training about conflicts of interest, and have to fill out financial forms disclosing whether we have a financial stake in the work (e.g. if we own a startup and are trying to direct research funds to that startup).

Basically, I've always felt that we held ourselves to a higher standard than Congress held itself too (e.g. being on a Congressional oversight committee and owning stock in affected companies, but that's a different rant).

[_djo_]

Those cheering on the current administration's actions and the wrecking ball of Musk and DOGE have such a distorted view on the way the US government works. The ethical standards maintained regarding conflicts of interest, the inability to receive gifts, transparency, and fraud prevention are all taken extremely seriously and have been for many decades. The US has had a civil service whose skills, experience, and professionalism many other countries envied and tried to replicate.

The changes being made now will deprofessionalise and politicise large parts of the US civil service. The US will be poorer for it.