Friday, July 10, 2026

ASEEES Opposes Proposed Changes to OMB Guidelines for Federal Financial Assistance

ASEEES submitted the following comment to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on July 10, 2026.

The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), an organization of over 3,500 scholars and practitioners, expresses strong opposition to the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed changes to the Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance.

As the foremost organization dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia, and Eastern Europe, ASEEES represents a field of scholarly research profoundly shaped by federal funding. ASEEES members and institutional members have received funding from the Department of State, Department of Education, Department of Defense, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, and numerous other federal bodies. As such, federal assistance has served as an essential source of support for scholarly research, foreign language training, and the cultivation of expertise on a world region of major geopolitical importance. 

ASEEES is gravely concerned that the proposed changes to federal funding regulations will have devastating implications for the integrity and quality of scholarly research and the development of specialized expertise in the United States. The new criteria, which include the stipulation that proposed research must “advance the President’s policy priorities” and require that “peer review remains advisory and does not replace agency discretion” within the review process, will replace a merit-based system of evaluation with a selection process dictated by partisan priorities.

ASEEES strongly opposes the proposed changes and urges OMB not to implement these criteria, which will undermine the international competitiveness of the research produced in the United States and pose a fundamental threat to academic freedom.