As Trump stymies science, a UNC grad student offers a way to fight back| Opinion
The Trump administration’s cuts in research funding are not only hindering advances in science, they are also slowing the advance of future scientists.
University labs that rely on federal grant dollars are now reluctant to bring on doctoral students they can no longer afford to pay. The result is a block in the pipeline that produces the next generation of scientists. Some doctoral students are seeking work outside the U.S. or choosing to quit scientific research altogether.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill John Patrick “J.P.” Flores has a clear view of the setback. A Ph.D candidate in bioinformatics and computational biology, he is involved in a program that admits 100 doctoral students. The students work in UNC labs for a year before they decide on an area of research to pursue, but federal cuts may reduce how many students can go through the program.
Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), complying with a Trump administration directive to end programs that foster diversity’s equity and inclusion, has cut some scientific training programs that bring minorities into scientific research.
The loss of funding and training programs “really does set back an entire generation of scientists,” Flores said
He added that aspiring scientists are confused and disappointed. “The morale is terrible,” he said. “Every day people are asking themselves, ‘Do I stay in science? Do I leave the country?”
But Flores, 25, is not giving up. He wants scientists to fight back by cultivating public support. He’s one of the founding organizers of a movement called Stand Up for Science. The national effort seeks to secure research funding, end political interference in research and defend diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in scientific research.
The COVID pandemic strained the public’s faith in science as doctors, researchers and health officials offered conflicting guidance that took a toll on student learning and business operations. When the esteemed physician-scientist Anthony Fauci was ridiculed by Republicans for his advice during the pandemic, Flores said, “The animosity toward a science hero was quite bewildering to me.”
But Flores said the erosion in the image of scientists was underway even before the pandemic as researchers failed to engage the public or explain the practical value of work they did at taxpayers’ expense.
“COVID was the nail in the coffin, but scientists put themselves in this position,” Flores said. “We should have done a better job in the first place on communicating science. We should have been more transparent about how infectious diseases are dealt with.”
The Trump administration has exploited skepticism about science by claiming that the costs of university research are excessively charged to the federal government.
Scientists tried to push back against the first Trump administration’s restriction on science research with a series of March for Science rallies in 2017 and 2018, but Flores said the movement lacked clear goals and faded after President Biden’s election in 2020.
To develop public support for science, Flores wants scientists to do a better job communicating about their work. “There hasn’t been an incentive for us to do that and that’s part of our downfall,” he said.
That’s where Stand Up for Science comes in. The group held a rally in Washington on March 7 and is exploring new ways to expand public awareness of science and its contributions. One novel idea Flores is developing is to have facts about science printed on cans of beer and nonalcoholic drinks produced by Steel String Brewery in Carrboro.
A spinoff from Stand Up for Science — a nonprofit known as Science for Good — will support more rallies, podcasts, op-eds and panel discussions and draw on the support of popular science communicators, such as “Bill Nye the science guy.”
“We’re trying to get creative as a scientific community in terms of communicating our science and engaging the public,” he said. “We hope that if we can educate people on science, we can talk about the attacks on science and hopefully we can get public involvement in helping to defend ourselves from these cuts.”
Under fire from the Trump administration and little understood by the public, U.S. science faces problems. Fortunately, scientists are good at solving them, but they’ll need the help of all who value the pursuit of truth.