Spring universities is a season of hiring teachers, a doctor of philosophy. Acceptance and post -class appointments. But this year has become a season of unrest and trepidation in institutions that rely on federal financing of scientific and technical research, as the Trump administration Wages of a widely advertised war with state waste It feels that for some in academic circles, as a war with a science financed by the state.
Binoparty support of basic science and discoveries that it gave, from space probes and sensory screens to vaccines and sequencing of the genome, once considered as impregnable. The dominance in international scientific research was a national priority that was the basis of the US economic and military skill. But under President Donald Trump, partisan battles for politicized science and institutional calcification began to pollute the federal care that researchers finances.
“I have never seen anything that is even remotely similar to what is happening,” says Michael Black, a physicist of the New York City College, and a democrat, who previously worked on scientific policy and financing on the Capitol Hill. “The scientific community is in a state of shock.”
Why did we write this
Financial state research has long fed US leadership in sciences. The Trump administration calls for reforms in this arena, but many researchers say that a reduction in financing is at risk of national power.
Changes in politics include almost total freezing for financing and permission for a grant National healthcare institutions that provide annual grants of more than $ 35 billion, which receive more than 300,000 researchers at universities, medical schools and other research institutions. NIH also stated that it would reduce overhead payments in percent from grants to 15%, compared with 40%, a potential shortage of billions of dollars. (Federal court in Boston Put a temporary stop in this new financing formula Last month.)
The National Scientific Fund, which supports academic research in the field of physics and chemistry, has reduced its labor and According to reports, aimed at deeper reductionsThe federal grants were stopped from the alleged non -compliance with the executive orders of Trump to terminate the programs of diversity, justice and inclusion (DEI). AND biologists, engineers and other scientific experts are leaving Or forced to oust from federal agencies.
The Trump administration protects reduction of “indirect costs” that NIH pays for granto As in accordance with private sponsors of scientific research, and claims that universities should look for their bloated bureaucracy. Researchers say that additional money pays for equipment, laboratory space, waste disposal and other total expenses shared by projects.
In addition to reducing expenses, the administration did not outlined a general scientific strategy. Mr. Trump appointed Michael Kramzius to lead his management of scientific and technical policy. M -n Kramzius has no scientific experience; He is an investor who worked in the first administration of Trump. He told the hearing in the Senate that the cool reduction of budgets for the scientific agency was a question for the White House and its budget unit.
The administration has not yet filled the highest ranks of scientific agencies, and a wider strategy may arise when this happens, says Anthony Mills, who leads the center for technology, science and energy at the American Institute of Enterprises, a stunt with a free market.
At the hearing on confirmation last week, the candidate of M -Trump was headed by NIH, Jay Bhattacharya, I drew a vision For an agency, which includes both research financing and reforms, which, according to him, are necessary. Having been promising that the scientists supported by NIH will “have the resources they need”, he said that his priorities will include the fight against chronic diseases, the regulation of research that can unintentively cause pandemia, and increase reliability to eliminate reduction in public confidence in science.
“Dissent is the very essence of science,” he said in Introductory application This complained about the culture of intolerance and conformity in NIH.
Dr. Bhattacharya himself suffered from this alleged intolerance – and was called some kind of “fringe” – for the views that he expressed during the pandemic.
At the moment, Elon Musk has determined the direction when he is trying to reduce the federal bureaucracy, including NIH and, to expansion, the elite of universities that it finances. According to Mr. Mills, for these efforts, some Republicans have been to these institutions since the pandemic Covid-19.
“Answer [by the administration] You should not look at what we finance, and make many decisions, but to punish these institutions, ”he says.
Russell Viud, the White House budget, for a long time criticized the federal government as “waking up and armed” and proposed deep reductions in institutions, including scientific institutions. In 2023, He warned that the “little scientific elite” Politicized research and medicine.
Each administration applies its own priorities for science, says Kirstin Matthew, a researcher on scientific and technical policy at the University of Rice. Under President Barack Obama, The science of the brain has received additional attentionThe field in its first period, Mr. Trump put artificial intelligence on the anterior burner. According to her, the difference in the past lies in the fact that science was in a “good place to be non -partisan. These are data and facts. ”
Faced with federal grants, some researchers can find alternative financing from funds or industries. But many areas are too far from commercial applications for interest in the private sector, says Mr. Matthew, who approved the Grant of the National Scientific Fund in January and waits to hear whether its financing will be affected. “No one finances fundamental research as a government,” she says.
Freezing financing immediately comes into force
Syutchatka in NIH I suppressed the pipeline of applications about grants and permits. Researchers who were waiting to present their projects to check the panels, meetings were canceled while Many existing grants were frozenThe field of clinical trials of some drugs were suspended, while the personnel frame added confusion from the right to grant.
According to Robert Kelchen, professor of educational leadership and political research at the University of Tennessessi at the University of Tennesesville, even a temporary pause on federal financing has consequences for research institutes at the University of Tennessee. Uncertainty about grants and the possibility that NIH imposes a 15% restriction on indirect costs creates a financial risk that led to freezing of all hiring.
In 2017, Mr. Trump asked Congress to limit the financing of NIH overhead costs at 15%, but he was rebuffed by a bicaparty group of lawmakers Which has inserted the defense into the bill on appropriations. Nevertheless, this did not prevent the second administration of Trump to try to break the formula, says Professor Kelchen, who studies the financing of universities.
Most of the dollars of scientific research is about 150 universities, which include private institutions with great donations, such as Harvard. In 2024, he received $ 686 million from NIH and other federal research agencies. Republicans presented Two bills that tax universities tax And to potentially damage their finances more than a reduction from scientific grants.
Public support covered by Partisan Divide
After the Second World War, public support for science has remained solid for decades, says Professor Black, a former lobbyist in Washington for an American physical society. American technologies helped the United States and their allies win the war and were a two -party priority for Congress. “If you were interested in national security, you should have supported science and technology,” he says.
This meant investment in studies in universities, including complex and specialized areas that required experience in federal agencies that observed financing. According to Professor Lancer, this also demanded that the public believes that taxpayers' money was spent wisely.
Confidence in scientists and their role in the development of politics suffered during the pandemic among the Republicans, According to the PEW survey data. Eighty -two percent of the Republicans in 2019 had confidence that scientists acted in the interests of the public. It fell to 66% in a survey in October 2024. Nine out of 10 democrats expressed confidence that scientists act in public interests, almost changed over the same period.
This partisan section and conservative concerns about federal expenses as a whole put scientific agencies and their research budgets in the crosshairs of the administration. Scientific policy analysts say that the largest reductions will probably fall into basic science, which does not have immediate medical or engineering. The fact that chemists and physicists are studying today may take decades to get results in applied science and technology.
Cut off the pipeline It means that these results cannot be found at least not by scientists from the USA, in areas from health to agriculture.
To take one example, biologists Studying the poison of Monster Gila I found a hormone, which is the basis of a new generation of weight loss, such as Wegovy and Ozempic. To take something else: Franks of the US Department of Agriculture Studies of sexual reproduction of flies In the 1950s led to the introduction of sterile sags, destroying pests that killed cattle in the south and cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
For research institutions that rely on federal scientific financing, losses will be felt by graduate students and junior teachers who begin their career. Some “will vote with their feet. They will find other classes, ”says Professor Black.
The outcome of the talent “will not be felt in four years of this administration,” says Mr. Matthew from Rice. But this has consequences for future leadership in science. “Since we lose more early career investigators and our labor force in the field of science, we will have no one to break.”
