Adam Sobel
Rough seas ahead: The Trump administration is reportedly looking to cut funding for NOAA and the National Science Foundation by 30 to 50 percent, or more. Photo: NOAA's Fleet Then and Now - Sailing for Science Collection
When the Trump administration issued its federal funding freeze in its first days, it was immediately felt as an enormous shock to scientists across the country. And it still is; while the freeze was officially blocked by court order, functionally, it still appears to be in place to some extent, in that the processes by which federal funds are disbursed to universities, government, and industry laboratories are not operating normally. Communication with most federal science agencies is currently difficult if not impossible.
At the same time, Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” has been trying to convince employees of the science agencies to quit, through a buyout offer of questionable legality combined with threats that they may be fired in any case.
Project 2025, the playbook behind the administration’s actions, calls for drastic and unprecedented reductions in agency budgets. The National Science Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have both been reportedly threatened with cuts of 30 to 50 percent or more. A new directive on Friday orders overhead on grants from the National Institute of Health to be cut to 15 percent. At this level, universities will lose money for research, such that many will have to do less of it or none at all.
The damage won’t be limited to the universities themselves: According to United for Medical Research, a coalition of university and private industry research institutions, the $37.81 billion awarded in NIH research grants in 2023 generated $92.89 billion in economic activity. Even that statistic doesn’t account for more diffuse benefits, or the way those benefits compound in subsequent years. One recent economic study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, for example, found that non-defense R&D spending overall paid returns of 150 to 300 percent, and was responsible for a quarter of the United States’ productivity growth since World War II.
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