The U.S. research machine has been hobbled. What will replace it?
By Margaret Coker, Georgia Health Journalism Fellow
Disruptions to research funding during the current Trump administration have left Michael Bronstein reeling. The University of Minnesota professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences told a panel at the recent AHCJ conference he wasted a year without conducting science while he focused on administrative tasks and grant paperwork necessary to unlock funding.
Bronstein told attendees he agonized about whether to amend his research focus — vaccine hesitancy among mentally ill adults — to something less politically provocative. In the end, he shifted to studying medication adherence but was still forced to wait another year for his grant money. Amid the disruption, an early-career researcher in his lab struggled to pay bills, and questioned whether a science career was viable.
Heather Pierce, senior director for science policy at the Association of American Medical Colleges said the Trump administration has stopped the flow of federal research dollars even after losing lawsuits requiring them to restart funding. A year after Trump took office, there is no confirmed leadership at 15 of 27 NIH centers.
“These are the people who make funding decisions. And without heads of these important institutions, no funding is happening,” she said. “This illustrates just how broken the science funding infrastructure is.”
While budgeted funds for research remain stable compared to the previous fiscal year, Pierce said the amount of obligated funds from NIH is 20-30% lower than it was before the second Trump administration. Money that is not obligated at the end of the federal government’s fiscal year reverts back to the U.S. Treasury, she said.
A generation of scientists could be lost.
Michael Bronstein, Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Sam Gill, president and CEO of the Doris Duke Foundation, said leadership vacancies and a slower pace of funding were a proactive tactic by the Trump administration to enact its anti-science ideology and destroy the research ecosystem that built America’s economy after WWII. “The core conceit of the modern American state is that we delegate to experts what we need for social and government well being,” he said, calling the current administration’s actions “an unprecedented attack on expertise.”
The panelists agreed on the reasons for the research crisis, but little discussion occurred about solutions — or predictions — about how the system will evolve. In the meantime, Bronstein said, “a generation of scientists could be lost.”
Margaret Coker is the co-founder and editor of The Current GA, Georgia’s nonprofit investigative news organization.
