What Has Trump Done to Science Funding?
In technology, medicine, weather forecasting, transportation safety, agriculture, and beyond, US researchers, largely funded by the Federal Government, have led the world. Trump and his followers are eroding that leadership and threatening future advances in science by gutting federal support for research. Since North Carolina is a leading recipient of Federal research funds, we will be hit hard financially and some of our important institutions crippled by this attack. Most importantly, we will share in the degradation in our standard of living in the long run for the loss of first-class scientific research. We will also lose leading scientists, as other countries mobilize to attract US scientists to continue their work abroad. Both non-health-related and health-related research will suffer. This article will discuss cuts to non-health-related research, leaving effects on health research to a later article.
Value of Scientific Research
The US and the world are facing challenges that will require substantial advances in our understanding of our world, challenges like climate change, the loss of insect biodiversity, and the likely increase in novel pandemic diseases. A lot of science, especially basic research, is economically risky, in the sense that individual projects have a low likelihood of large economic and/or societal rewards. Rewards that do materialize may be difficult to anticipate. “The actual, up-front activity of science and innovation is … like a stumble in the dark, searching for a light that may or may not be there (BF Jones, in “Science and Innovation: The Under-Fueled Engine of Prosperity.”)”. However unpredictable, rewards, when they materialize, can be very large. For example, the Type 2 diabetes and weight-loss drug Ozempic resulted from general research on gila monsters, which led to biochemical explorations of gila monster venom by NIH and VA investigators. Estimates suggest each dollar of investment in innovation yields $5 to $20 in societal benefits.
What Has Trump Done?
In its first several months, the Trump administration has devastated US science. The National Science Foundation (NSF) alone cancelled about $1 billion in grants. Projects that smacked of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”, DEI, like those aimed at teacher recruitment and retention in math and science as well as initiatives to expand career pathways in STEM were terminated. Anything that could be construed to “promote gender ideology” was also cut.
Along similar lines, Trump has called climate change a “hoax” since before his first term in office, so it should be no surprise that over 100 NSF grants related to climate change, clean energy, climate adaptation and so forth, worth over $100 million have been cut.
In addition, federal websites related to climate change have disappeared, and the scientists and experts producing the next edition of the National Climate Assessment have been released. The Trump administration has removed nearly 600 National Weather Service (NWS) employees through firings and buy-outs. This has reduced staffing levels across the NWS and raised concerns about effects on weather forecasting.
Universities that receive grants are generally also reimbursed for indirect costs, like maintenance of lab space and support personnel. Reimbursement rates are individually negotiated with each University, and they fall in the 50% – 65% range. On top of cutting grants, the Trump administration has attempted to cap this reimbursement at 15%, but this has so far been blocked by the courts.
During his campaign, Trump suggested oil and gas executives donate $1 billion to his campaign, while proposing generous cutbacks to environmental regulation. In fact, oil and gas industries donated almost $26 million to the Trump campaign, compared to under $2 million to the Harris campaign. Recently, plans got the go-ahead to severely restructure the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development (ORD), eliminating around 1000 positions and scaling back its research activities. ORD has conducted numerous important research activities, including the development of inexpensive methods for rapidly evaluating the toxicity of environmental chemicals. Using conventional approaches, a full evaluation of the toxicity of a chemical could take years and millions of dollars. The new approaches developed at ORD can take only months, and a few tens of dollars to complete. Research in that area was ongoing but now may have to stop.
What does all this mean for North Carolina?
Fifty-five NSF grants worth a total of $45 million were cancelled across the state (see Grant Watch, filter to only NC grants, and select ‘grid view’). The loss of that grant money translates to the loss of junior researchers and the reduced ability to train new scientists. There will be ripple effects on the general economy, but also through the effects on businesses who serve university research, supplying things like reagents and equipment.
Finally, just like the rest of the country, North Carolina will suffer the loss of the benefits of that research.
And Next Year?
Trump’s proposed 2026 budget has been transmitted to Congress and is being considered by committees now. It includes substantial cuts to staffing and funding for the NSF. It terminates NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which carries out research on climate change and improving weather forecasting. What’s more, it projects massive cuts to NASA’s science divisions, resulting in the loss of over 40 missions. All this needs to be approved by Congress, and early indications are that Congress may not go along.
To show that you care, now is the time to contact your two senators and congressperson and tell them you favor the Federal support of science. The app 5 Calls (http://5calls.com/) is a convenient way to do that!