Excellent piece. I'm a producer of a new documentary, THE ENDLESS FRONTIER, an intimate, urgent portrait of three scientists working to solve some of the most pressing challenges of our time, from disease to climate change, while revealing the growing threat to the American research engine and what is at stake for all of us if it falters.
There is a Stand Up for Science movement which has been started. Please join with Stand Up for Science to stop the attack on science by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.
This pisses me off. Absolutely a prime example of the Golden Law of Stupidity. Fantastic article, Kristin. It reminds me of the kind of profoundly researched deep dive John Oliver and his team do in each episode of Last Week Tonight. They spotlight something vital that has gone overlooked because we’re all distracted in a million different directions yet force us to pay attention anyway. If I might make an uninvited suggestion - and borrow something John and his team do that helps to focus the rage they provoke - it would help me self-soothe (if nothing else) to know ways you can think of that we can all do something to change the trajectory of this issue. Obviously, it makes no sense for America to continue down the path of defunding science, but I don’t work for the government. What can a private citizen do to get us back on the right track?
There is a Stand Up for Science movement which has been started. Please join with Stand Up for Science to stop the attack on science by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.
Thanks for the kind words, Hunter, and great question. Fortunately, Congress rejected Trump's NSF budget cut requests this year, but as noted, that didn't stop the admin from getting in the way of distributions. It's important that citizens continue to advocate for science funding-- that's the only way Congress will fight to defend it. I think telling stories about the transformative impact of federal funding and the material impact it has on people's lives is worthwhile. A full answer to your question is going to require some more thought on my part, but I'm determined to deliver!
I’d suggest checking out the Union of Concerned Scientists. IMO, they do a great job of pushing back against cuts and political interference to science - https://www.ucs.org
There is a Stand Up for Science movement which has been started. Please join with Stand Up for Science to stop the attack on science by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.
Thanks. Please continue to bring attention this as it affects the long term trajectories. It needs a long term solution at multiple levels: funding research in universities, increased R&D, and connecting inventions to innovations. Link to a lecture I gave in UCLA in 2015:
Minor footnote: Terman never would have been able to do what he did for E.E. at Stanford during the 1950's without the backing of its President, Wallace Sterling, under whom Stanford aggressively recruited Ivy League faculty to relocate and backed the creation of the industrial park that sparked what became Silicon Valley. Before that, Stanford was not very selective--just expensive.
Trump's antipathy towards science goes back at least to Covid, when he could have taken credit for the development of the mRNA vaccine, but instead bought into the anti-mask, conspiracy theory crowd. As a result, there probably was close to a million excess deaths due to Covid. Stupid is what stupid does.
There is a Stand Up for Science movement which has been started. Please join with Stand Up for Science to stop the attack on science by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.
Yes, indeed! Right now, the reputation of the pharmaceutical industries has been completely destroyed by the ongoing COVID debacle, to just quote one example. Many areas of science need to be questioned; teach by rote, while refusing to allow new thinking to be applied to both physics and cosmology, are another example. The Western economic model has been shattered by gigantic funds investing in small numbers of classic monopolies caused by the introduction of the Financial Services Industry is another. Eventually Trump will be vindicated, by the creation of a classic wave of freedom to think anew; within new scientific support mediums that must now be created from the ashes of the existing failures. Leaving the existing science support structures in place is never the way to replace failure with success. Take a look at any successful change; it has to always start with the closure of the failed mechanisms that have taken the wrong road to success for far too long.
There is a Stand Up for Science movement which has been started. Please join with Stand Up for Science to stop the attack on science by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.
Yes indeed, I may well do that; but take it as said, science has lost it's way and the underlying problem is not that congress has decided to take control; it is the now obvious failures of funding sometimes absolutely dreadful science that has brought you all to this point. A new start is very best way to create the necessary changes in attitude; it has to happen.
Thank you, Kristin, for such an incisive look at yet another area where this administration is doing real damage to America's traditional values and strengths. The madness has to stop, and it's through articles like this, shining light on the true dangers to our nation's world standing, that we can get our government back to supporting and spearheading scientific research that benefits us all.
I was at a BioCom event and they presented some slides on this subject. As I understand it (and maybe I don't!), the total dollar amount of funding from 2024 to 2025 is about the same while the number of actual grants has declined as mentioned in the article. So the amount per grant has gone up. If this is true, It would be interesting to better understand the drivers/motives to these underlying changes.
Thanks for the comment, Keith! It's true that 2024-2025 saw similar funding, but the nature of the funding is very different... and consequential. The NSF and NIH funded more multiyear grants and funded fewer new grants (thus reducing support for new ideas). Grants have historically been distributed in installments, but now, agencies are paying up front for up to four years of work. That sounds good, but in practice, researchers get less money on average in total and less time to spend it. So the agency isn't placing many bets at once-- it's doubling down on projects that are largely aligned with the administration's ideological preferences.
Very interesting and very well explained. Likely in a few years/a decade we might look back at this moment as a pivotal one in US history. This long term decisions tend to not get enough press, but have huge effects in a country's policy landscape.
Excellent piece, though I offer a pedantic editing note: The phrase "Today, it’s hard to understate the importance of scientific research..." should read "Today, it's hard to overstate the importance of scientific research...", as in, the research is so important that we struggle to convey the magnitude of that importance.
Love your stuff but the new "science-y papery-y" background you're using in your graphs and charts obscures visibility. Check out your "New Grants Awarded..." image from today's post where the "paper" lines look randomly like cross-outs.
Kristin, now you’ve made me think and do research. Canada had almost a decade (2006-2015) of a Conservative government under Stephen Harper who defunded science and restricted scientific exchange. In the last 5 years Canadian productivity per capita has fallen behind American productivity. Are these two facts linked? I’ll try and discover this. Thank-you!!
Excellent piece. I'm a producer of a new documentary, THE ENDLESS FRONTIER, an intimate, urgent portrait of three scientists working to solve some of the most pressing challenges of our time, from disease to climate change, while revealing the growing threat to the American research engine and what is at stake for all of us if it falters.
Here’s a link to the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ6sMhPDVZI
The film is premiering this Friday, June 12 at the DC/DOX film festival in Washington DC ( https://dcdoxfest.com/films/the-endless-frontier/ ). We’re also screening in NYC on Monday, June 15 at the New York Academy of Medicine ( https://support.nyam.org/event/the-endless-frontier-new-york-film-premiere/e797007 )
Scientists need our support!
- Elizabeth Westrate
There is a Stand Up for Science movement which has been started. Please join with Stand Up for Science to stop the attack on science by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/stop-vought-save-science-a-call-to?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=1223483&post_id=201203545&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_content=watch_now_button&r=5101br&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
This film looks fantastic! Would love to check it out, and thank you for your work on this, Elizabeth.
$ageofreason40 donate for omnibus
This pisses me off. Absolutely a prime example of the Golden Law of Stupidity. Fantastic article, Kristin. It reminds me of the kind of profoundly researched deep dive John Oliver and his team do in each episode of Last Week Tonight. They spotlight something vital that has gone overlooked because we’re all distracted in a million different directions yet force us to pay attention anyway. If I might make an uninvited suggestion - and borrow something John and his team do that helps to focus the rage they provoke - it would help me self-soothe (if nothing else) to know ways you can think of that we can all do something to change the trajectory of this issue. Obviously, it makes no sense for America to continue down the path of defunding science, but I don’t work for the government. What can a private citizen do to get us back on the right track?
There is a Stand Up for Science movement which has been started. Please join with Stand Up for Science to stop the attack on science by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/stop-vought-save-science-a-call-to?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=1223483&post_id=201203545&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_content=watch_now_button&r=5101br&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Thanks for the kind words, Hunter, and great question. Fortunately, Congress rejected Trump's NSF budget cut requests this year, but as noted, that didn't stop the admin from getting in the way of distributions. It's important that citizens continue to advocate for science funding-- that's the only way Congress will fight to defend it. I think telling stories about the transformative impact of federal funding and the material impact it has on people's lives is worthwhile. A full answer to your question is going to require some more thought on my part, but I'm determined to deliver!
I’d suggest checking out the Union of Concerned Scientists. IMO, they do a great job of pushing back against cuts and political interference to science - https://www.ucs.org
Something I once heard Richard Dawkins say that stays with me: Science is interesting and if you don’t agree you can fuck off!
Thank you Kristin for this excellent piece. As a public health nurse, I am truly frightened by all of the defunding and dismantling!
There is a Stand Up for Science movement which has been started. Please join with Stand Up for Science to stop the attack on science by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/stop-vought-save-science-a-call-to?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=1223483&post_id=201203545&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_content=watch_now_button&r=5101br&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Please see an earlier article on this in 2017: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/04/united-states-manufacturing-innovation/
Great piece, thank you for sharing.
Thanks. Please continue to bring attention this as it affects the long term trajectories. It needs a long term solution at multiple levels: funding research in universities, increased R&D, and connecting inventions to innovations. Link to a lecture I gave in UCLA in 2015:
https://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/public-lectures-events/ipam-lecture-missing-in-translation-where-are-the-innovations-by-sadasivan-shankar/?tab=the-speaker
Minor footnote: Terman never would have been able to do what he did for E.E. at Stanford during the 1950's without the backing of its President, Wallace Sterling, under whom Stanford aggressively recruited Ivy League faculty to relocate and backed the creation of the industrial park that sparked what became Silicon Valley. Before that, Stanford was not very selective--just expensive.
Trump's antipathy towards science goes back at least to Covid, when he could have taken credit for the development of the mRNA vaccine, but instead bought into the anti-mask, conspiracy theory crowd. As a result, there probably was close to a million excess deaths due to Covid. Stupid is what stupid does.
There is a Stand Up for Science movement which has been started. Please join with Stand Up for Science to stop the attack on science by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/stop-vought-save-science-a-call-to?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=1223483&post_id=201203545&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_content=watch_now_button&r=5101br&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Yes, indeed! Right now, the reputation of the pharmaceutical industries has been completely destroyed by the ongoing COVID debacle, to just quote one example. Many areas of science need to be questioned; teach by rote, while refusing to allow new thinking to be applied to both physics and cosmology, are another example. The Western economic model has been shattered by gigantic funds investing in small numbers of classic monopolies caused by the introduction of the Financial Services Industry is another. Eventually Trump will be vindicated, by the creation of a classic wave of freedom to think anew; within new scientific support mediums that must now be created from the ashes of the existing failures. Leaving the existing science support structures in place is never the way to replace failure with success. Take a look at any successful change; it has to always start with the closure of the failed mechanisms that have taken the wrong road to success for far too long.
There is a Stand Up for Science movement which has been started. Please join with Stand Up for Science to stop the attack on science by adding your feedback and comments to the Federal Register during the public comment period, open until July 13, 2026.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/stop-vought-save-science-a-call-to?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=1223483&post_id=201203545&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_content=watch_now_button&r=5101br&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Yes indeed, I may well do that; but take it as said, science has lost it's way and the underlying problem is not that congress has decided to take control; it is the now obvious failures of funding sometimes absolutely dreadful science that has brought you all to this point. A new start is very best way to create the necessary changes in attitude; it has to happen.
Thank you, Kristin, for such an incisive look at yet another area where this administration is doing real damage to America's traditional values and strengths. The madness has to stop, and it's through articles like this, shining light on the true dangers to our nation's world standing, that we can get our government back to supporting and spearheading scientific research that benefits us all.
USA is declining so fast, but they don’t even know it!
I was at a BioCom event and they presented some slides on this subject. As I understand it (and maybe I don't!), the total dollar amount of funding from 2024 to 2025 is about the same while the number of actual grants has declined as mentioned in the article. So the amount per grant has gone up. If this is true, It would be interesting to better understand the drivers/motives to these underlying changes.
Thanks for the comment, Keith! It's true that 2024-2025 saw similar funding, but the nature of the funding is very different... and consequential. The NSF and NIH funded more multiyear grants and funded fewer new grants (thus reducing support for new ideas). Grants have historically been distributed in installments, but now, agencies are paying up front for up to four years of work. That sounds good, but in practice, researchers get less money on average in total and less time to spend it. So the agency isn't placing many bets at once-- it's doubling down on projects that are largely aligned with the administration's ideological preferences.
Very interesting and very well explained. Likely in a few years/a decade we might look back at this moment as a pivotal one in US history. This long term decisions tend to not get enough press, but have huge effects in a country's policy landscape.
Excellent piece, though I offer a pedantic editing note: The phrase "Today, it’s hard to understate the importance of scientific research..." should read "Today, it's hard to overstate the importance of scientific research...", as in, the research is so important that we struggle to convey the magnitude of that importance.
Love your stuff but the new "science-y papery-y" background you're using in your graphs and charts obscures visibility. Check out your "New Grants Awarded..." image from today's post where the "paper" lines look randomly like cross-outs.
Thank you for the flag, John!
Kristin, now you’ve made me think and do research. Canada had almost a decade (2006-2015) of a Conservative government under Stephen Harper who defunded science and restricted scientific exchange. In the last 5 years Canadian productivity per capita has fallen behind American productivity. Are these two facts linked? I’ll try and discover this. Thank-you!!
That is quite intriguing, Gerry... will be curious about your findings!