Editorial: After funding cuts to US science, what comes next?

The new US administration has been in power for not quite 3 months. Since then, the pace of change has been at times overwhelming. Even focusing on just the policy changes that directly affect science requires concerted effort.

On his first day in office, President Donald J. Trump signed a record 26 executive orders, according to USA Facts, and these focused on removing people’s rights; pulling back from global commitments, such as the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization; and concentrating power in the executive branch to the detriment of the US’s foundational checks-and-balances system.

US Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin more recently announced that the EPA is reviewing 31 regulatory actions for possible rollback, news welcomed by industry groups but not by environmentalists. The agency is also delaying chemical regulations.

Business leaders have been less welcoming to the increasingly unstable economic conditions. Back in February, Trump first announced plans for steep tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China. He later paused those tariffs, but then came the most recent announcement of sweeping tariffs with most of the US’s global partners. Those tariffs exclude most pharmaceuticals, many chemicals, and semiconductors, but some of the products on the exemption list may be subject to later tariffs.

Federal agencies have fired people across many agencies and then rehired some, as well as cut departments, including those studying diseases such as ALS.

It is not just federal workers who have been dealing with uncertainty. The government has frozen and then unfrozen scientific funding, changed rules around how grant monies are allocated, and canceled grants, some of which have been reinstated.

Universities are rescinding some graduate school offers sent to chemistry majors. Globally, high-performing chemistry students who would normally head to the US to pursue their training tell C&EN they are exploring programs elsewhere.

Institutions and governments outside the US are keen to capitalize on the brain drain of trainees and more senior scientists from the US. Yet it is unclear if places such as Canada, China, and Europe can fill the void.

The golden age of innovation?

In a March 26 letter to Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Trump writes that “scientific progress and technological innovation were the twin engines that powered the American century.”

The influence of US science and innovation since the Second World War is hard to overstate. Many scientists have assumed the role of US leadership in science will continue in the future. We as a society cannot continue to do so.

While in the same March 26 letter, Trump says the US has the “opportunity to cement America’s global technological leadership and usher in the Golden Age of American Innovation,” his defunding of scientific agencies and attacks on academic freedom—including the revocation of student visas—make that opportunity difficult to grasp.

In February, this magazine warned that funding cuts risked US scientific advancement. That concern has not abated. It is not clear how the US government is going to deliver its vision of leadership if it stops investing in the pathway of talent and undermines confidence in scientific institutions.

As C&EN continues to follow and report on the news, our interest is not just what is happening now but these events’ upstream and downstream effects. For example, who benefits and who loses by individual decisions or changes? Answers to those questions can indicate how the government’s priorities are shifting. It allows us, the chemistry invested, to widen our perspective from a snapshot to a more panoramic view.

It is also informative to look for how the chemistry community organizes itself in response and to notice initiatives that emerge from the shifting sands, such as the work by librarians and scientists trying to save data repositories.

Tech enterprise professionals have often discussed the value of breaking things to allow something sleeker and better to emerge.

As we stand amid the debris, we may collectively struggle to understand how the pieces add up for the scientific enterprise. And maybe there is no coherent big picture yet. But at least we can aim for a bigger picture than the daily headlines on the average newsfeed.

This editorial is the result of collective deliberation in C&EN. For this editorial, the lead contributor is Laura Howes.

Views expressed on this page are not necessarily those of ACS.