One of the great strengths of the U.S. has been the dominant position of research universities. The Times Higher Education world rankings show that the U.S. has 7 of the top 10 institutions as well as 6 in the next ten. Currently Oxford University ranks first with M.I.T. and Harvard place second and third respectively. However over the last two months the Trump Administration has withheld federal funds leading U.S. universities.
Will the risk of having a faculty members research funds getting blocked, will human capital lead to a brain drain at U.S. schools as researchers relocate to high-quality institutions in other countries?
I am not sure if the withholding of funding itself will detriment the research of these prestigious institutions.
However, the introduced biases by the Trump administration, e.g. if adhering to the list of words that may not be used anymore (for example woman and pregnancy) do cause concern about validity and reliability of research.
For instance, how can we find (as of February 2025) research about pregnancy and is it due to deliberate censuring words, even possible to use it in scientific work?
This is impossible to sort out later, hence in particular meta analyses, required to determine evidence based interventions, cannot be performed anymore, or with extremely costly and doubtful rewrites to get the proper wording back.
This is just an example, but the nonsense list of words not to be used in research is over 100, many about health and health status.
Thank you for your excellent contribution, Dr. Goossen to this discussion.
The flagging of words such as "Black", "women", "historically", "gender" etc
would make it difficult to pursue research in the Humanities and social sciences as well as the natural sciences. Best wishes to you and for your research.
And health care as well.
I might remember wrong, but were covid and vaccin banned as well?
I don't believe there was a ban on the covid vaccine. But in February, I believe there was an executive order that no school could receive discretionary federal funds that had a mandate that required covid-19 vaccination. But few, if any, institutions have such a mandate.
Dear John Matthew Golden , please visit the following discussion room with almost 120 answers on this issue.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_does_Trumps_presidency_mean_for_science/12
How about this Trump's action!!? (New executive order)
Political officials could control US grants
US President Donald Trump issued an expansive executive order on Thursday that, if implemented, would hand control over federal science grants to political appointees. It says that peer review — traditionally done by panels of scientists to determine which grants are funded — should be “advisory”. But appointees would ultimately decide if proposals “advance the President’s policy priorities” or are “anti-American”. It also doubles-down on the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict acceptable research topics — prohibiting, for example, grants that promote “illegal immigration”...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02557-z
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/improving-oversight-of-federal-grantmaking/
Thank you, Prof. Jacic. President Trump is vastly expanding the power of
the Executive Branch and the U.S. Supreme Court has been generally supportive. So far, he has faced little effective opposition. There is
especially concern that his withholding U.S. research funds (e.g., NIH grans) could drive many of the world's best researchers the U.S. On the economic front, the impact of his tariffs on world trade and the spending bill that narrowly passed Congress could have negative consequences both for the U.S. and abroad. His policies toward undocumented immigrants have been criticized as very harsh. And he forced concessions from many of the largest companies to increase investment in the U.S, to bring back manufacturing jobs to the U.S. Many are fearful here that their rights are being eroded in America. On the other hand, as high paying manufacturing jobs vanished from the U.S. over the last 60 years, high school graduates whose parents and grandparents worked high paying jobs in autos, steel, paint and glass industries, found their living standards declining. President Trump has been highly effective in winning loyal support from this base. Many were once Democrats, but changed parties as they see him as their savior. They see him as an effective communicator, bold and aggressive, and this is especially true of men. He surely is the most consequential presidency since FDR 90 years ago. What its full consequences will be both for the U.S. and the rest of the world are yet to be determined.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics
- Composition Studies
- Writing