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They've always had the final say on issuing grants, but it was handled by career scientists rather than political appointees. Canceling grants in process is extremely rare. Since many of those grants concern science and tech it does seem relevant to this site.
So they’ll be sued. The theories will be tested and we’ll see exactly where the line is (eventually). And probably somewhere uncomfortable, given SCOTUS.
There are legitimate ways agency political appointees can set funding priorities. Like this year we’ll focus on Alzheimer’s. But of course, we should take the least charitable reading of this - that it’ll likely be used for shenanigans. Punish enemies. Award cronies. Go after junk science, etc.
Science and Educational purposes are valid 501(c)(3) purposes. A donation to a 501(c)(3) that funds open-source scientific software, public STEM education, basic research, science grants, or public-interest tech research can be deductible.
Up to 60% of Adjusted Gross Income can be tax-deductible as charitable contributions to a qualified 501(c)(3) with itemization, depending on the contribution type.
This would create a non-partisan defined/dedicated non-profit funding layer with serious governance that will benefit all sides. Might be possible to go global.
This would need serious structure: independent board, conflict-of-interest rules, grant review, public reporting, no private benefit, and probably fiscal sponsorship first.
Maybe this deserves a separate Ask HN to avoid derailing this thread: would people here actually support or help design a 501(c)(3)-style vehicle for public-benefit science and technology funding?
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They've always had the final say on issuing grants, but it was handled by career scientists rather than political appointees. Canceling grants in process is extremely rare. Since many of those grants concern science and tech it does seem relevant to this site.
True, but that is democracy for you.
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They were polled, on election day. Most Americans want this, or didn't care enough to stop it. Potato, potahto.
I would guess that if you polled voters on election Day, and asked them why they voted for Trump, science funding wouldn't even come up as a topic. They would probably talk about high prices, or criminal aliens, or how they didn't like Harris.
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A friend in a prestigious European university said that applications were up in basically all fields
Berlin "boutique" tech consultancy, we are seeing a noticable increase in Israeli and US engineers into our hiring pipeline. The braindrain from the autocratic countries is real.
If you want to stay a scientist, you have to emigrate. The art of continually licking the right asses to keep funding going is not science.
Emigrate where? And why do you assume that the country you're gonna emigrate to will have the funds necessay to fund the research? US grants are the biggest and most generous in the world. I think the USG spends over $900 Billion every year. Europe spends about 1/10th of that. Other option is China but as a foreigner, you will never get a grant there unless you work for someone else.