A recent federal proposal would give political appointees more power to approve competitive research funding allocations, drawing concern from thousands of researchers across the country. With Pitt’s status as a major research institution, Pitt researchers and leaders are concerned. Berg called the idea of putting political appointees in charge of grant funding decisions “worrisome,” noting that it would be a major shift from tradition. “You might have people making decisions about scientific proposals who don’t know anything about biology or the nuances of a field,” Berg said. He also said that in the future, scientific proposals might attempt to appeal to the administration in order to get funding, rather than being scientifically sound.