At this weekly annual gathering in Boston, one of America's oldest scientific societies, discussion touched on the threat to humanity: runaway artificial intelligence, toxic “eternal chemicals”, the final part of the universe That's the end.
However, the most urgent threat for many scientists was the ones that targeted them. The Trump administration has significantly reduced the federal scientific workforce and cut billions of dollars in funding for university research.
“Anxiety, Anxiety, and to some extent sadness” is how Sudip Parikh, who heads the American Society for Progress in Science, the organisation that hosts the conference, put together the mood on Saturday. News about layoffs at government agencies spill over the meetings on participants' mobile phones.
“We're like we're being hit by all sides,” said Roger Wakimoto, Deputy Prime Minister of Research at Los Angeles.
Just weeks after President Trump's second term, Republicans in his administration and Congress shake up the university with a crackdown on diversity initiatives, threats to donations and potential deportation of undocumented students I did.
Scientists worry that the most widespread changes are coming, and that could affect the foundations of US public research funding, namely the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. The two agencies fund thousands of projects each year, supporting hundreds of thousands of researchers and other workers from agencies in all states. The agency is promoting quantum computing, providing a financial backbone for American efforts to treat cancer, deal with rising sea levels.
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to refrain from planning to cut NIH funds by $4 billion. However, if the proposal goes ahead, or if the administration enacts similar changes between other agencies, university officials say their impact on their institutions and their communities will be devastating.
Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of Journal Science, is at risk as the fundamental model that underpins modern scientific leadership in America. After World War II, authorities understood the need to support the kind of basic research that would not immediately lead to marketable innovation. But such work is expensive. So the university and the federal government agreed to split the costs.
“Now you're looking at the federal government that could potentially try to move away from it,” Dr. Thorpe said. “And what I'm worried about is that in the long run, universities will decide to do less research.”
The Trump administration said the NIH is planning to curb waste rather than research. At the AAAS conference, atmospheric scientist Kelvin Droughemier, who advised President Trump during his first term, urged researchers to embrace what he described as an motivation for efficiency. Scientists spend a huge amount of time meeting regulatory requirements rather than doing real science, Dr. Drogemeyer said.
“We have challenges right now, but there are also very important opportunities to get greater efficiency,” he said.
But pruning regulations for research will not be easy, Dr. Thorpe said. And withholding funds overnight “will destabilize the system,” he said.
Of the 3,500 people gathered at the Boston Convention Center for a science conference, many of the lectures drifted towards simple questions. What can you do about all of this? Some of the answers were not done before first sorting out what the administration was and trying to counteract it.
“In my opinion, the current administration is not anti-science,” said Mary Woolley, president of Research America, a nonprofit organization that promotes medical research. Scientists can move forward with their goals in the administration, she said, by emphasizing, for example, strong science will increase America's competitiveness in the world.
To Keiizumi, who worked in the White House Science and Technology Policy during the Biden administration, scientific research has so far been “collateral damage” in the new administration's crusades to universities. These actions were driven not by animus towards science but by a desire to eradicate Trump officials' “awakening” policies and what they wanted to ride as a culture, he said.
One of the more specifically targeted disciplines is climate science. For a long time, President Trump has downplayed the threat from human-induced global warming. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has ordered staff to integrate research awards on conditions such as “climate science,” “climate crisis,” “clean energy,” and “pollution.”
Aurora Ross completes her doctoral studies at the Oceanography Institute at the University of California, San Diego and is preparing to apply for a job. Instead, she said, “I wonder what kind of institutions will exist in a year.”
She and other scientists can understand how to paraphrase funding applications to avoid mentioning climate change, Ross said. But “Can you feel attacked based on doing science in the world? That's a difficult thing to sit together,” she said.
One attendee at the Boston Conference, Kelly Cronin, an assistant professor of geology at Georgia State University's Boundary University, saw the reasons for optimism. For example, her former employer, Georgia Southern University, recently established a school for Earth, Environment and Sustainability.
“Georgia Southern is in Stateboro, Georgia and is clearly red,” Dr. Cronin said. “They draw most of the students from South Georgia,” she said. “Even so, this was a decision they made.”
