Science Under Siege

View email in your browser

Dear Reader,

The speed of retrenchment is breathtaking. In six short months, the Trump administration has pushed deep cuts to federal support for university research, revoked or suspended grants for studies it thinks run contrary to its ideology, and made it harder for foreign students and scholars – long integral to America’s scientific enterprise – to study and work here.

Many of those moves could be reversed by the courts or, eventually, Congress. But even if they do intervene, university research labs may not be able to bounce back.

Our reporters are documenting what academic scientists are experiencing and what this assault on their work means – not just for their livelihoods but for their institutions.

Stephanie M. Lee, drawing on exclusive data, describes how the National Institutes of Health has quietly sent dozens of grants into a mysterious limbo by simply suspending peer review. Until now, researchers facing the stiff competition for federal funds could at least count on knowing the rules and working with “humans who usually responded to their emails and processed their paperwork,” Stephanie writes. How are they supposed to fight back against silence?

Megan Zahneis talks to would-be graduate students and postdocs who’ve seen their dreams of pursuing research quashed, as federal cuts have canceled fellowships or forced universities to shrink Ph.D. programs. As one source told Megan, should those programs expand again, nascent scientists who were turned away this year “will have spent a year doing something else — having worked in industry, having taught, having done whatever, such that by that point, they may be completely discouraged” from taking the academic path.

Karin Fischer’s richly analytical account of federal science policy dating back to World War II shows how it fueled prosperity on and off campuses and made American universities the envy of the world, and why that legacy is now being undone. Her article makes clear that higher ed leaders and researchers have an urgent task: To make politicians and the public understand that basic research is nonpartisan and essential – that it leads to more powerful medicines, better crime detection, technologies that improve everyday life, and a five-fold return on every dollar invested.

Trying to make that argument earlier this month, more than 20 scientists from U.S. research institutions presented “a science fair of canceled grants” on Capitol Hill. But, as one economist who studies innovation policy told Karin, the problem “isn’t dissatisfaction with science but with the institutions that do science.” That is to say, universities.

If starving their labs is merely a weapon in a campaign to bring them to their knees, higher ed institutions need to do more than make the case for science. What that winning message sounds like, however, is anyone’s guess.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Ruark

Deputy Managing Editor