President’s Executive Order

America is home to the world's largest and best universities; topmost social sciences research institutions in STEM subjects -- science, technology, engineering and mathematics. America’ s celebrated scientists and eminent researchers win largest number of Nobel Prizes and umpteen other global awards from non-profit and private foundations year after year practically in most of these academic and science discipline research areas. With their exceptional research landmarks, they have been instrumental in innovating most of the rare medications and scientific discoveries that have made our lives safe, comfortable and happy.

Most of these research milestones have been bested by scientists and researchers spending their uncounted hours, days and nights, months and years in labs avidly waiting to hit the Eureka moments in their persuasions. There’s no doubt that all these successes were possible by unyielding wide-ranging support – financial, academic and persistent patience. In the many years gone by, dependable and adequate financial backing from the U.S. federal government, individual state governments, prosperous private sector and many rich non-profit foundations have been the backbone of most of the successful research endeavours.

But unfortunately, with the advent of the 47th President Donald Trump regime January 2025, the old order has been transforming for the worse due to the Trump Office of Management and Budget (OMB) strictly ordaining: ‘All grant money, from every single agency, would be on hold indefinitely.

Moreover, President Trump’s over 250 Executive Orders also laid down many new directives for dealing with his administration. Each agency was given roughly two weeks to evaluate the grants they fund based on a list of ideological concerns; no new grants would be evaluated during this period.’ The ‘freeze’ itself has been put on hold; the scientific research community has reacted with ‘mixture of shock, anger and horror that might seem excessive to people who have never confronted such situations,’ leading to the conclusion that the new research grants policy ‘could be irreparably harmed adversely affecting the industry.’  For, according to the funding freeze policy, the federal government executive agencies ‘should align with the policies laid out by the presidential executive orders.’

Meanwhile, to immediately stop government grants, the Trump administration has decided to act against some of the past incidents that happened against political developments in middle east. Thus, as reported by the daily the San Francisco Chronicle, beginning in January the administration decided to ‘limit the U.S. National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation which fund tens of billions of dollars for research each year across the country the Trump administration has held federal funds cut university resources and erased efforts, earlier passed by the Biden administration, relating to ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’, DEI, that jeopardize existing grants.

Besides, Elon Musk’s DOGE – department of government efficiency – had also ‘spearheaded firings in science agencies,’ saying the ‘cuts will reduce fiscal bloat.’ In fact, these measures have thrown California’s many labs and research institutions into disarray. The Indian-origin professor of molecular cell and development biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Needhi Bhalla, ventilated her frustrations: ‘We are feeling frustrated and wondering why something that has benefited from bipartisan support for 70 years is now a target.’  While the US has been a longtime leader in science and innovation, experts fear a haphazard teardown of research infrastructure could have widespread, and long-lasting, negative consequences.

As a result, many researchers will face plethora of issues with getting funds – even money awarded before the Trump regime ushered in. During 2024 fiscal, California received $5.2 billion from NIH and $1 billion from NSF. Research programmes supporting students from underrepresented backgrounds have been abolished because of DEI being done away with. Besides, hundreds of research scholars, including a couple of Nobel laureates, have rallied in the national capital, Washington, to support science, funding and job losses. “Right now, science is under threat with the new federal administration’’, opine many researchers. With the firing of over 800 employees of the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, and employees of the National Weather Service on the rise, the worried employees are said to be considering moving a federal court to stop further terminations of the employees.

Ever since the inauguration, the Trump administration has added to funding-cuts of some of the best-known US ivy universities. Some of the recent varsities’ federal funding cuts are: Brown University, Rhode Island $500 million; John Hopkins, $800 million; Columbia $400 million: Harvard $9 billion; MIT between $30 million and $35 million per year; Pennsylvania $250 million; and Duke University $863 million. The staff firing seems to be an unending, continuing process.

Finally, the US being the home to world class scientific institutions has fostered innovations. Its top-class research collaborations attract high quality talent across the globe, creating a diverse competitive culture that leads to ground-breaking discoveries. Moreover, the focus here is on innovations. Ably backed by best interdisciplinary expert and eminent scientists. In addition, many more factors lead to the likelihood of the  Nobel’s recognition. Also, active research-support comes from various and divergent sources: government funding, private sector, non-profit organizations and charities, universities and umpteen international collaborations. All these and shared resources create a multi-faceted support system that nurtures high quality research across various disciplines.

M.R. Dua, former professor-head, journalism department, Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), New Delhi, and an ex-faculty Journalism, California State University, US.