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WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

scientificamerican.com

381–390 of 676 posts

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#381

More of the same at this point. If you are politically connected, or stay in an narrow lane of approved work, you get your grant. But if you stray from the politically approved path, or appear disloyal to our First Citizen and the Party, then your grant will be canceled. The remaining supporters of the incumbent party like to claim that they aren't actually doing anything worse than in the past, and if anything they…

My father was a Ph.D., a research scientist at a large state university. After understanding how political everything is under the surface, he cautioned me from ever working in a field that depended on government funding. "What one administration gives you, the next one can take away" is close to a literal quote. Outsiders like to imagine that the pure pursuit of science without any agendas is what university researc…

"Political" in the context of research funding generally doesn't mean what it means under this administration. Administrations have always shifted priorities as far as what scientific fields they want to fund, and individual PMs have also made more opinionated choices. This is normal and expected. A DARPA PM is limited to a 7-year term to ensure that fresh blood constantly enters the system. What's happening now is political in the "partisan political" sense, where specific grants are being killed because they violate political priorities or because the researchers spoke up against the President. This is new.

ETA: Slightly off topic, but a colleague had his already-granted NSF grant killed by DOGE because it contained the word "censorship". He was researching ways to allow Iranian people to bypass their regime's Internet censorship.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#382

So...as a scientist, I can lose my funding if I exercise my free speech and publicly disagree with Trump? What is this, North Korea?

>What is this, North Korea? Given how mind-numbingly servile the ruling party is to their autocrat, it sure looks like North Korea sometimes.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#383
post #367

So...as a scientist, I can lose my funding if I exercise my free speech and publicly disagree with Trump? What is this, North Korea?

No it's worse than that. Your grant application must be actively aligned with their political agenda. If you are polite, deferential and apolitical but you want to study climate change you will be rejected.

Ahh, so I should study vaccines and autism and tylenol

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#385

More of the same at this point. If you are politically connected, or stay in an narrow lane of approved work, you get your grant. But if you stray from the politically approved path, or appear disloyal to our First Citizen and the Party, then your grant will be canceled. The remaining supporters of the incumbent party like to claim that they aren't actually doing anything worse than in the past, and if anything they…

Besides the brutal impact on those already invested in the American research community, this is one more nail in the coffin when it comes to competing for new talent. What researcher in their right mind would move their research and their future to the USA to join this clown rodeo? It is unbelievable to watch my country give up its most unfair (and yet mostly positive) advantage -- a nearly free option on the top tal…

Well, any research related to weapons programs. Jobs/grants in the fields of laser research, AI, material sciences, mathematics, chemistry and aerospace are safe... so long as you dont talk to outsiders.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#386

More of the same at this point. If you are politically connected, or stay in an narrow lane of approved work, you get your grant. But if you stray from the politically approved path, or appear disloyal to our First Citizen and the Party, then your grant will be canceled. The remaining supporters of the incumbent party like to claim that they aren't actually doing anything worse than in the past, and if anything they…

[flagged]

This is a lesson I've learned over thirty years. If the GOP says "the Democrats are doing X" then you can be assured the winning Republican plans to do X (or already has.) It inoculates them. Crushing academic free speech is just one of several X's.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#387
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re thinking tactically. All tactics, no strategy is the way of things currently - on the right especially, but on the left to some extent too. It’s maddening.

It seems to me that the right wingers have a pretty detailed strategy as you can see with Project 2025. I don’t see anything similar on the left wing. I think it’s pretty crazy that even with the current chaos the democrats still aren’t able to craft a coherent message why people should vote FOR them instead of just voting against the republicans. They look purely reactive. No clear message on health care, no message…

> It seems to me that the right wingers have a pretty detailed strategy as you can see with Project 2025. I don’t see anything similar on the left wing. I think it’s pretty crazy that even with the current chaos the democrats still aren’t able to craft a coherent message why people should vote FOR them

This is the worst part. The Democrats have nothing but outrage and protest. They don’t have a written Democrat Project 2029. Their action plan is as thin as a Reddit post.

The right spent decades working on their strategy, who to target/convert, how to do it, what they would do once in power, and how quickly: and they wrote it down. What the fuck are the Democrats doing? Holding little signs up in protest in Congress and having little press conferences where they make meek outrage noises. This is a very unserious party in the face of a very serious political problem.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#388

More of the same at this point. If you are politically connected, or stay in an narrow lane of approved work, you get your grant. But if you stray from the politically approved path, or appear disloyal to our First Citizen and the Party, then your grant will be canceled. The remaining supporters of the incumbent party like to claim that they aren't actually doing anything worse than in the past, and if anything they…

Besides the brutal impact on those already invested in the American research community, this is one more nail in the coffin when it comes to competing for new talent. What researcher in their right mind would move their research and their future to the USA to join this clown rodeo? It is unbelievable to watch my country give up its most unfair (and yet mostly positive) advantage -- a nearly free option on the top tal…

>> What researcher in their right mind would move their research and their future to the USA to join this clown rodeo?

Well, not all research is publicly funded. I think private funding is still fine for the most part. But yes, public research is dying a painful death.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the brutal impact on those already invested in the American research community, this is one more nail in the coffin when it comes to competing for new talent. What researcher in their right mind would move their research and their future to the USA to join this clown rodeo? It is unbelievable to watch my country give up its most unfair (and yet mostly positive) advantage -- a nearly free option on the top tal…

Well, any research related to weapons programs. Jobs/grants in the fields of laser research, AI, material sciences, mathematics, chemistry and aerospace are safe... so long as you dont talk to outsiders.

As long as you don't step out line of course.

Re: WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

#390
> any grant program would need to be “aligned with administration policies and priorities.”

From a naive perspective, this sounds a lot like the breeding ground for Lysenkoism (Stalin-approved). In that example, aligning science to the party line led to a couple of famines. I say naive because there were other factors at play (e.g. it was forbidden to criticize Lysenko's theories).

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