>>xqcgre+(OP)
Related:

The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine

>>46355077

>>zkmon+V3
The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/02/upshot/trump-...

Far too early to know the exact long term effects but it’s definitely happening.

>>lisbbb+d6
Like these? https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/11/over-74000-people-wer...

>>zkmon+V3
For the year ending May 2024, China released more scientific papers -in English- than the US [1]. We have been on a decline for a while.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...

[edit] I think that list is total, not just for a single year. Still telling though.

>>robswc+s6
In the previous Trump term "diversity related topics" included things like biodiversity which is an important area of research and should be apolitical. Not because of a shift in focus, but because of top-down orders to not fund anything related to "diversity."

Conservatives in the past have also tried to belittle research grants to justify eliminating them, such as "studying X about fruit flies." It might sound silly to a lay person but drosophila is an incredibly important model organism from which many discoveries have come.

The problem is a highly political, often careless or incompetent, and sometimes blatantly corrupt administration taking a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel to so-called "waste."

[1] https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2019...

>>robswc+s6
New account because I’m a lazy lurker, but “diversity related” projects could be as simple as trying to balance the number of studies done primarily on white males vs other groups. Especially in biomedical research, the gender of the population studied has a profound effect on the relevancy of results.

By many measures, over 75% of studies have historically focused on white male populations, which for a variety of potential research/treatment areas, is important to control for.

https://www.google.com/search?q=percentage+of+medical+studie...

>>heiron+2a
> With an annual budget of more than $47 billion, NIH is the largest single public funder of biomedical and behavioral research in the world. In fiscal year 2023, NIH funding generated an estimated $92.89 billion in economic activity.

https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/impact-nih-research/serving-so...

The US isn’t doing the world a favor by funding this stuff. The country directly benefits from it.

>>robswc+tb
>One environmental researcher NPR spoke to, whose employer receives federal funding, confirmed that they have been advised to avoid the terms "climate change," "sustainable" and "sustainability." Even "biodiversity" is of concern to some of their colleagues because it includes the word "diversity."

(Please don't just respond to the quote - lots of context in the full article.)

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/14/nx-s1-5349473/trump-free-spee...

This language-based filtering began in the first term and has been widely reported.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/16/cdc-banned-w...

>>zeroCa+CV

  > Republicans hold on to their power by only a slim amount.

Agreed. But that is only counting the Republican seats. Historically, Dems had great trouble to do reforms, even if they wanted to and got enough seats. Multiple reasons. 1) Internal opposition. Dems are a big tent party, the Bernie side isn't that big. 2) You have to battle with the oligarchy. The Dems had to fight a war to get something basic like an independent central bank. 3) Historically, the Reps excel in slick and expensive marketing campaigns. 4) You can reach some parts of the public with information, but the odds are low that this message will be allowed to gain critical mass.

  > left wing sources still have plenty of room to work there

Sure, but was the reversal of anti-monopolist anti financial fraud legislature made undone in the past decades? The narratives that shaped the public's opinion do make the universe smaller, often in such a way that writers don't even notice, as it their lived universe too. Also, why can't the voices in the US that do sound the alarm get enough traction? The intelligence and military industry have done great damage since Bush. The irony is that the Reps, in the most shameless way started isolationist narratives, criticizing the various wars, as capital shifted from military industry to surveillance and big tech industry. Now that criticism was due, but the narratives have been established. Any writer has to deal with the power of those widespread narratives. Yes, illegal wars, private militaries¹ and so forth are bad. No, isolationism and might-makes-right is bad too. But that takes deconstructing the dominant narratives.

  > The EU needs to make a strong case for itself instead of assuming what it's owned.

I can't say you are wrong, but I could understand if they calculate that this isn't worth the risks. You might be someone that would read a letter from some European official with willingness to consider its message, but I think most people would interpret it as some variant of "hey American, let me as some European bureaucrat try to blindside you with a factual looking message so that the europoors can continue siphoning of from you". Also, this might open the door for the Reps to go even further with propping up neo-nazi or far-right parties in Europe, because you can bet the press will present this as a "both sides do".

Secondly, the US populace will get hit harder than Europe. That begs the question why the US own voices shouldn't be the first. And if they fail, how would the EU do that better?

Long story short, you might be right that the EU should be more proactive, maybe. Their weak voice might be partly attributed to their limited geopolitical agenda. But, even if their voice could and should be louder, I have big doubts it would make a difference.

_____

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company)