The National Science Foundation told staff it will lower the number of external reviews required for grant decisions, and the National Institutes of Health has instructed staff to run proposals through a computational text‑analysis tool, according to reporting in Science and STAT. NSF cited a backlog caused by the government shutdown and staffing constraints; NIH framed its guidance as a way to detect proposals misaligned with new priorities. The changes compress established merit‑review practices and shift more discretion to program officers, raising concerns among researchers about consistency and potential politicization of funding decisions. University research offices and investigators should expect faster award cycles but also new review noise as agencies adopt streamlined procedures and automated scans.