The March for Science was a big success, but did it widen the gulf? (B. Douthitt/Science) As President Donald Trump nears the end of his first year in office, the relationship between the maverick Republican and the U.S. research community is deeply dysfunctional. It’s a breakdown of epic proportions, with no obvious fix.
One reason for the estrangement is Trump’s action on science-related issues: He has renounced the 2015 Paris climate accord, rolled back many environmental rules, and called for deep budget cuts at key research agencies. In addition, many scientists are alarmed by research-related appointments he has—and has not—made. At press time, there was still no White House science adviser, and Trump has chosen several people to oversee federal research programs who lack serious scientific credentials.
These developments have fueled perceptions that the president and his top advisers don’t care about science or value its contributions to improving the nation’s health, prosperity, and security. If true, that would be a marked reversal from the support that science generally has received from generations of policymakers of both parties.
Combined with the personal antipathy that many scientists feel toward the president, his apparent disregard for science appears to have soured the appetite of many scientific leaders for a role in this administration. An informal Science survey of 66 prominent U.S. scientists found that half would refuse an offer to work for Trump. That’s a surprisingly high percentage, given the historically positive attitude among the community for public service. At the same time, four in five said they would consider an invitation to serve on a high-level scientific advisory panel. (Democrats make up half the respondents; 40% are independents, and 10% are Republicans.)
Many of the scientists surveyed report being torn between a desire to provide the government with the best possible advice on scientific issues and a concern that their efforts would be for naught. “I am having a hard time figuring out how to interact with the Trump administration,” admits Shirley Tilghman, a molecular biologist and president emerita of Princeton University. “I had no difficulties with prior Republican administrations because, despite our policy differences, I had faith in their fundamental integrity and commitment to scientific inquiry,” says Tilghman, a Democrat. “I do not have the same confidence in the Trump administration.”
“It’s critical that scientists work with [the White House] in setting priorities for the president’s science budget and providing advice,” says Arden Bement, a Republican who was director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Alexandria, Virginia, under former President George W. Bush. “Unfortunately, providing science advice to a president who resists advice, would not understand it, or would distort it for personal and political reasons would be futile and frustrating.”
It’s difficult to generalize about the research policies of any president, given the complexity of the government’s $150-billion-a-year science investments. On the one hand, Trump’s decision to retain National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins and NSF Director France Córdova has given many scientists hope that academic research will remain relatively unscathed during his administration. And other Trump choices—including Scott Gottlieb as head of the Food and Drug Administration, Brenda Fitzgerald as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Jerome Adams as U.S. surgeon general—are generally viewed as mainstream appointees who understand and support their agency’s work.
But scientists have decried some Trump picks. The heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy (DOE), Scott Pruitt and Rick Perry, respectively, are generally seen as hostile to their agency’s scientific missions. And many believe Trump’s choice to lead NASA, Representative James Bridenstine (R–OK), would be a step toward politicizing the space agency. Researchers were appalled by the nomination of Sam Clovis to oversee the Department of Agriculture’s research division. (A political operative with no scientific credentials, Clovis withdrew after becoming entangled in the investigations into Russia’s influence on the 2016 election.)
Trump has been slow to fill many positions, so it would be wrong to say science has been singled out for neglect. But many see the lack of a nominee for head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, who traditionally has also served as the president’s science adviser, as especially troublesome. At the same time, they’d prefer no nominee over someone who’s not qualified. And some fear the position might be irrelevant if the president believes he doesn’t need a science adviser.
Of course, no president calls all the shots in Washington, D.C. Congress has largely dismissed Trump’s 2018 request for significantly smaller budgets at NSF, NIH, and several other science agencies. And that response should be a call to action, says Cherry Murray, a physicist at Harvard University who led DOE’s Office of Science during former President Barack Obama’s administration. “It’s very important that the U.S. science community step up their interaction with the authorization and appropriation committees of both the House [of Representatives] and Senate and not just focus on the executive branch,” she argues.
Although some see increased activism as a key to repairing science’s broken relationship with the White House, researchers are still debating the impact of the unprecedented March for Science this spring. Some say it was an effective way to mobilize public support, whereas others believe it has exacerbated the breach.
A conclave last month at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, D.C., on the partnership between government and academia illustrated the current sorry state of affairs. In 2008, scientists attending a similar meeting applauded talks by three Cabinet secretaries serving Bush, whose policies many in the audience found anathema. But this time around, not a single representative of the Trump administration attended the all-day meeting, although several were invited. And nary a word was spoken in favor of the administration’s policies toward research
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