{"id":97085,"date":"2026-11-01T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=97085"},"modified":"2026-10-31T20:11:43","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T02:11:43","slug":"how-trump-is-dismantling-americas-scientific-research-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/how-trump-is-dismantling-americas-scientific-research-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"How Trump is dismantling America\u2019s scientific research machine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/How-Trump-is-dismantling-Americas-scientific-research-machine-1024x683.avif\" alt=\"How Trump is dismantling America\u2019s scientific research machine\" class=\"wp-image-97086\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/How-Trump-is-dismantling-Americas-scientific-research-machine-1024x683.avif 1024w, https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/How-Trump-is-dismantling-Americas-scientific-research-machine-300x200.avif 300w, https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/How-Trump-is-dismantling-Americas-scientific-research-machine-768x512.avif 768w, https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/How-Trump-is-dismantling-Americas-scientific-research-machine-1536x1025.avif 1536w, https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/How-Trump-is-dismantling-Americas-scientific-research-machine.avif 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The warning, buried in an obscure government report this summer, was unflinching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Defense Department\u2019s vaunted network of research laboratories \u2014 whose scientists helped develop satellite communication, radar technology, and even the computer mouse \u2014 was in trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The labs lost a significant share of their staff last year, largely in response to the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to thin the federal work force, the report found. Refilling critical positions was proving difficult due in part to President Trump\u2019s demand that new hires be screened for their loyalty to his goals. The report, issued by the Pentagon, pointed to \u201cpotentially grave consequences for the future of national defense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The turmoil inside scientific research has extended beyond the Pentagon. The Energy Department, a key hub of nuclear and quantum research, has lost more than 1,000 scientists and technical staff. The National Science Foundation, for decades a primary backer of long-term, foundational research, has withheld more than $1 billion in funding. And at the National Institutes of Health, the biggest funder of medical research, officials delayed or canceled more than 2,000 grants to biomedical researchers focused on topics such as Alzheimer\u2019s, cancer and other diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under Mr. Trump, the federal government is still spending roughly as much on research \u2014 about $200 billion this year \u2014 as the administrations that came before. Scientists across the country are still receiving grants; universities are still being funded. But beneath the surface, the system of federally funded science that helped make the United States a global superpower is under intense strain from Trump policies, jeopardizing the nation\u2019s advantages in defense, medicine and technology, a New York Times examination has found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The White House regularly proclaims that it is advancing American interests. Yet its actions are eroding the country\u2019s scientific edge as global rivals challenge U.S. dominance in fields that will help define the 21st century, according to interviews with scientists, university leaders, government officials and analysts and a review of documents and budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The damage is the byproduct of three pillars of Mr. Trump\u2019s broader agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One is the sweeping job cuts and grant cancellations engineered last year by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-led effort that viewed much of federal spending as wasteful and whose effects are still reverberating across the bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A second is the administration\u2019s continued pressure on research universities, in which the White House used funding cuts to push schools into adhering to its demands for ideologically driven policy shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The third is a campaign by Mr. Trump\u2019s budget director, Russell T. Vought, to impose more political control over how the government spends money appropriated by Congress, further infusing politics into decisions around scientific research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If not for the courts curbing the administration\u2019s campaign against universities and lawmakers in both parties rejecting cuts to research funding, the impact on science would have been far deeper. Still, the effects of the broader agenda have rippled through nearly every facet of the nation\u2019s research machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aspiring scientists have seen their career paths thwarted, with fewer available spots for Ph.D. students. The number of Ph.D. applications from foreign students, typically a significant share of U.S. science programs, shrank by 21 percent this year at leading universities, according to data gathered for the Association of American Universities. Total Ph.D. admissions at those schools have dropped as universities try to make do with less resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even the agencies working on topics that Mr. Trump and his aides have called priorities \u2014 including national defense, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and nuclear energy \u2014 have been depleted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taken together, the changes underscore how Mr. Trump\u2019s policies have disrupted scientific research beyond the areas the administration has targeted more directly, such as vaccines and climate science, endangering U.S. power and pre-eminence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By many measures, China is closing the gap with the United States as the world\u2019s research leader. Some organizations that rank global universities show China\u2019s best schools increasingly displacing American universities at the top. And the impact of Chinese research papers, as measured by citations from other scientists, has caught up with the United States, according to Clarivate, a data and analytics company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the time the full consequences of the administration\u2019s actions become apparent, experts warn, it could be too late to fix. That\u2019s because basic research funded by federal grants often takes decades to mature into the technology, medical treatments and consumer products that change American life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Federally funded work on atomic clocks starting in the late 1940s, for example, paved the way for GPS technology. In 1976, federally funded research yielded a major discovery about the origins of cancer-causing genes, which led to a Nobel Prize and, two decades later, lifesaving cancer drugs. Some of the early precursors to artificial intelligence date to U.S.-backed research in the 1980s, which used an algorithm to teach neural networks to learn from mistakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cScience is the long game,\u201d said Marcia McNutt, who was president of the National Academy of Sciences, the country\u2019s top scientific advisory body, until this summer. \u201cBy the time we no longer win any Nobel Prizes, we will have lost the capacity to ever recover.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In response to The Times\u2019 reporting, officials from the White House, Pentagon and other science agencies disputed that administration policies were hampering science. Rather, said White House spokeswoman Liz Huston, the administration is reinvigorating American science by transforming organizations in need of change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cPresident Trump is ushering in a new golden age of American science by modernizing our research institutions, refocusing on ambitious national missions, and fully leveraging super intelligence for scientific discovery,\u201d Ms. Huston said in a statement, using Mr. Trump\u2019s preferred term for artificial intelligence. \u201cRevitalizing our national scientific enterprise requires supporting the best American scientists and funding the best research based on merit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The White House said the administration has expanded a number of programs that support young researchers, and noted that the decision to reduce Ph.D. admissions this year was made by the universities themselves. The Association of American Universities said schools\u2019 decisions to reduce admissions were largely the result of \u201cfederal research funding uncertainties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The White House also said that most of the scientists who have stopped working for the federal government since Mr. Trump came back to office were not fired, but instead left voluntarily. And it noted that the methodologies for ranking universities, such as comparisons between the United States and China, are limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The rest of the world now sees an opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Australia, for example, announced its \u201cglobal talent attraction program,\u201d calling it \u201can urgent and unparalleled opportunity to attract the smartest minds leaving the United States.\u201d Canada dedicated more than $1 billion to bring in 1,000 international researchers, drawing American leaders in fields such as biochemistry and neuroscience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even China, a country not known for academic freedoms, has been luring researchers away. A winner of last year\u2019s Nobel Prize in Chemistry left the University of California, Berkeley, to lead an institute in Beijing using artificial intelligence to accelerate the discovery of new materials \u2014 two fields the Trump administration has said it wants to dominate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A Postwar System Shaken to Its Core<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The roots of the United States\u2019 science empire can be traced to a landmark 1945 report issued during the Truman administration, \u201cScience: The Endless Frontier.\u201d It described a vision, inspired in part by the Manhattan Project that led to the atomic bomb, for how science would power U.S. dominance in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The federal government went on to establish a network of science agencies with distinct missions. The National Science Foundation supports theoretical or experimental work, which often lays the groundwork for future technologies years or even decades later. The Department of Energy was established to pursue advances related to power generation, as well as managing the nation\u2019s nuclear arsenal. NASA, created in response to Soviet advances in space, put a man on the moon. The National Institutes of Health, which traces its roots to 1887, funds biomedical advances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The federal government also provides tens of billions of dollars each year to the nation\u2019s research universities while funding national labs, private industry and other institutions \u2014 a system built up over 80 years by presidents and lawmakers from both parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In less than two years, Mr. Trump has shaken that system to the core.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The upheaval began early in the administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DOGE engineered staff firings, and encouraged others to resign across the federal bureaucracy. Within a year, N.I.H. staffing had shrunk by one-fifth. The N.S.F.\u2019s ranks were reduced by a third. Even NASA, which shrank less than other science agencies, lost 20 percent of its employees with Ph.D.s. Those who left included its chief scientist, a climate science expert whose job the administration eliminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NASA said it will keep recruiting staff as needed. In a statement, Nicky Fox, the associate administrator for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate, said the agency is working to get \u201cmore science into space for lower cost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DOGE and the White House directed agencies to search for terms in grant descriptions that might reveal science the administration viewed as liberal, including anything that appeared to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The cuts cascaded through the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ann D. Cohen, a neuroscientist who co-directs an Alzheimer\u2019s research center at the University of Pittsburgh, had been working on a five-year study looking at how people\u2019s exposure to stress and health problems earlier in life can affect their odds of developing the disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The research was critical to developing better treatments and health interventions, Dr. Cohen said. \u201cIf the triggering event is poor cardiovascular health in midlife, we can actually deploy public health strategies to improve those things, and potentially have an effect on Alzheimer\u2019s,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Recruiting people from different backgrounds was difficult, because people who volunteer for scientific studies tend to have higher than average incomes and education levels. So Dr. Cohen and her colleagues recruited from rural Western Pennsylvania, whose residents were more likely to be white and low-income, as well as from Black communities in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This past August, the N.I.H. terminated the grant, effective immediately, on the grounds that the project was focused on structural racism \u2014 an argument that fundamentally misunderstood the work, Dr. Cohen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the N.I.H., did not comment on specific grants. In a statement, she said N.I.H.\u2019s commitment to Alzheimer\u2019s research has not decreased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cN.I.H. is focused on funding innovative projects led by a new generation of health researchers, and on allocating funds for research that will lead to better health for the American people,\u201d Ms. Hilliard said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some researchers who lost funding acknowledged having framed their projects in the language of D.E.I. But, they argued, that was what the Biden administration had emphasized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jessica L. Rosenberg, director of education for the Quantum Science and Engineering Center at George Mason University, had received N.S.F. funding to research ways to encourage more American students to seek careers in quantum technology, an emerging field that has led to innovation by vastly expanding computing power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The N.S.F. canceled the grant last year, about four months after the project started. Dr. Rosenberg said she suspects the grant was targeted because her application mentioned students from diverse backgrounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat was what we were supposed to be doing at the time,\u201d she said in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trump administration officials argue that the push to incorporate D.E.I. degraded science, and that scientists who embraced the approach had themselves to blame for losing support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe cannot afford for America\u2019s scientists to be in the business of scoring points for an ideological agenda,\u201d Michael Kratsios, Mr. Trump\u2019s science adviser, told a meeting of scientists last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A Dilemma for Universities<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mr. Trump and his aides returned to the White House wanting to punish elite schools like Columbia and Harvard, ostensibly for transgressions like tolerating antisemitism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But when cuts to research funding became the White House\u2019s weapon of choice, professors and administrators had to decide whether to fight or acquiesce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Harvard sued. Other schools negotiated. And even at universities that were not explicitly targeted, researchers made changes in hopes of keeping federal money that was foundational to their work \u2014 softening the language in their proposals, narrowing their projects and debating the line between fair-game government oversight and improper political interference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The cuts fell across disciplines. Projects on epilepsy, Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease, tuberculosis and even astronomy outreach and education sputtered. Work on cancer and heart rhythms was imperiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The administration ultimately restored billions of dollars in funding, either because of court orders or settlements with universities. But researchers said the interruptions and changing priorities delayed or derailed experiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou can\u2019t run a research operation when you have to constantly pivot,\u201d said Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, vice chancellor for research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which was swept up in the administration\u2019s funding cuts and participated in more than a dozen legal challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe current state of affairs is that it\u2019s really very hard to plan long term,\u201d she added, \u201cand research is a long-term kind of enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">May Mailman, a former White House aide who helped lead the pressure campaign against universities, said the administration wasn\u2019t overly concerned about the effects on research. Funds taken away from one university could eventually make their way to other schools whose behavior and ideology the White House approved of, she said. In the meantime, Ms. Mailman said, the administration tried to minimize the disruption to fields of research it supported, including artificial intelligence and some types of energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But much of the work coming out of universities, she said, may not have merited the taxpayer money going into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere\u2019s a feeling that there is more spent on research than comes out of it \u2014 that the system is a little bit broken,\u201d Ms. Mailman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The Hunt for Woke<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The administration also sought deep funding cuts to federal science agencies. Last year, when Mr. Vought presented the administration\u2019s annual budget request to Congress, he called for reducing research funds at the National Institutes of Health by 41 percent; cutting the National Science Foundation by 55 percent; and reducing NASA\u2019s budget for science by almost half. No previous administration, from either party, had sought such deep cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Congress rejected those cuts. But Mr. Vought began finding novel ways to slow grants and redirect funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the offices that Mr. Vought targeted in his budget request was the N.S.F.\u2019s \u201cwoke social, behavioral, and economic sciences\u201d \u2014 an apparent reference to an N.S.F. division that funded social science. Not long after, the division began reducing its grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An N.S.F. spokesman, Michael England, said in a statement that the agency\u2019s funding decisions \u201creflect a strategic alignment of resources in a constrained fiscal environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The loss of those funds affected researchers like Priti Shah, chair of the University of Michigan\u2019s psychology department. Dr. Shah had applied for a grant to study how people evaluate and make decisions based on scientific information. In the summer of 2025, the N.S.F. told her that her application had been put on hold because of funding issues. It was later rejected entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt is so important to understand what people assume and what errors they make when they\u2019re thinking about science,\u201d Dr. Shah said. \u201cPeople are very poor at reasoning about scientific evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>An Innovation Engine \u2018at Risk of Stalling\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The administration\u2019s actions also hurt agencies central to its political agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Defense Department\u2019s assessment of science and research capabilities published this summer said changes during the first year of the Trump administration had degraded the department\u2019s highly regarded network of research laboratories, due largely to DOGE cuts and obstacles to hiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWithout a swift and sustained reversal of these policies,\u201d the report warned, the Defense Department\u2019s \u201cinnovation engine is at risk of stalling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The labs lost about 14 percent of their staff, the report found. Among those mentioned were the Naval Sea Systems Command, charged with developing ships and weapons; the Air Force Research Laboratory, which helped develop stealth aircraft and laser systems; and the Army\u2019s Aviation &amp; Missile Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">External research laboratories, which are funded by the Pentagon but staffed by civilian researchers and develop technology for use by the military, were also suffering from the administration\u2019s policies, the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Much of the work at those labs, some of which are attached to major research universities, is classified, and the report did not disclose specific examples of research that has been affected. But it warned that staff departures inside the labs and among agency employees who coordinated with them \u201cjeopardized the execution of critical defense research.\u201d Without key points of contact between the agency and the labs, the report said, efforts that support \u201ctime-sensitive, real-world operations are in some cases at a standstill or delayed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because the labs aren\u2019t financially connected to defense contractors, they play an added important role helping the Pentagon objectively evaluate contractors\u2019 claims about new technologies, said Heidi Shyu, who oversaw the Pentagon\u2019s research operation as under secretary of defense for research and engineering in the Biden administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A Pentagon official acknowledged that, during the first year of the administration, there was a \u201cretraction in the number of scientists and engineers across the research enterprise.\u201d But, the official said, the agency has \u201chired to fulfill the mission and mitigate any impacts from the loss of personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Defense Department funding changes also affected university researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Randall Engle, a psychologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, was working on ways to help the Navy select air traffic controllers, pilots and other applicants for complex jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Navy needs to train roughly 1,000 new air traffic controllers each year, Dr. Engle said, at a cost of about $100,000 per trainee. But because the job requires intense focus in difficult conditions, nearly a quarter of trainees typically fail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So he received funding to develop diagnostic tests to determine a person\u2019s ability to maintain focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Engle tested his new approach at the Navy\u2019s air base in Pensacola, Fla., and found that it did a better job identifying people likely to succeed as air traffic controllers. He was in the midst of refining those tests, when the Office of Naval Research told Georgia Tech that the grant was canceled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Engle said he believes the grant was canceled simply because it was happening at a university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere was no wokeness,\u201d Dr. Engle said of his project. \u201cThere was no diversity, inclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A New Agenda<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The uncertainty over the future of American science is reflected in the events that have unfolded at the Department of Energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The agency is a critical engine for research in the physical sciences, and it houses the Genesis Mission \u2014 a marquee Trump administration initiative that officials say will drive discoveries across a range of topics, from quantum computing and particle accelerators to microchips that can operate in outer space. In an executive order, Mr. Trump called it a \u201cdedicated, coordinated national effort to unleash a new age of AI-accelerated innovation and discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Americas-scientific-research2-1024x683.avif\" alt=\"America\u2019s scientific research2\" class=\"wp-image-97087\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Americas-scientific-research2-1024x683.avif 1024w, https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Americas-scientific-research2-300x200.avif 300w, https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Americas-scientific-research2-767x511.avif 767w, https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Americas-scientific-research2-1536x1024.avif 1536w, https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Americas-scientific-research2.avif 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the Energy Department\u2019s central role on a Trump-driven project came with a glaring contradiction: It was also hammered by DOGE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The agency has lost about one-quarter of its staff since the start of the administration, according to a Times analysis of federal data. And the amount of grant money awarded by its two major science offices dropped by more than one-quarter during the administration\u2019s first year, before Genesis began \u2014 a reduction of more than half a billion dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dar\u00edo Gil, the agency\u2019s top science official, rejected the idea that its science mission has suffered, noting that much of the department\u2019s work is done by 17 national laboratories, where most staff are not federal employees and so not affected by DOGE\u2019s staff-reduction programs. He said the agency is hiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cStaffing is always a challenge\u201d Dr. Gil said. \u201cWe continue to recruit good people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He added that the goal of Genesis is to double the productivity of America\u2019s science industry within a decade. The program has selected almost 300 projects to fund at universities, private companies, national labs and other research organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe outcome we seek,\u201d Dr. Gil said, \u201cis that this transformation impacts the entire American economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In July, just a few weeks after the Pentagon published its warning about defense labs, Mr. Kratsios, the White House science adviser, issued a report of his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The document emphasized many of the administration\u2019s goals: Increasing the role of private industry in federal research. Bypassing the traditional peer-review process for deciding who gets research grants, instead giving individual reviewers the chance \u201cto make bold scientific bets\u201d on researchers of their choosing. Redirecting more money toward younger researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mr. Kratsios barely mentioned a crucial part of the administration\u2019s agenda: a proposed rule issued by the Trump administration this past May, which would require that Mr. Trump\u2019s political appointees approve which researchers get funding \u2014 taking power away from nonpartisan science officials who have typically been the deciders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under the proposal, researchers seeking funds \u201cshould commit to complying with administration policies.\u201d Officials would screen and reject applications for projects that \u201cpromote anti-American values.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The day after Mr. Kratsios released his report, he appeared before the House science committee to discuss it. Some committee members seemed perplexed by his promise to usher in a scientific golden age, given the tumult over the previous year and a half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAll I see is tarnish and deterioration,\u201d said Representative Gabe Amo, Democrat of Rhode Island. \u201cDo you commit to not leaving our scientific apparatus in shambles?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t think, sir, I would be doing my job if I wanted to leave the scientific enterprise in shambles,\u201d Mr. Kratsios responded. \u201cSo I will commit to not doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>Credits: The New York Times<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>Authors: Christopher Flavelle, Irena Hwang, Adam Sella, Alan Blinder, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Benjamin Mueller and Michael C. Bender<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>Photo: Eric Lee<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The warning, buried in an obscure government report this summer, was unflinching. The Defense Department\u2019s vaunted network of research laboratories \u2014 whose scientists helped develop satellite communication, radar technology, and even the computer mouse \u2014 was in trouble. The labs lost a significant share of their staff last year, largely in response to the Trump [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":97086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"How Trump is dismantling America\u2019s scientific research machine - Opini\u00f3n P\u00fablica","description":"The warning, buried in an obscure government report this summer, was unflinching. The Defense Department\u2019s vaunted network of research laboratories \u2014 whose scie"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1015],"tags":[5043,2796],"class_list":["post-97085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-optv-usa","tag-americas-scientific-research","tag-trump-administration"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97088,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97085\/revisions\/97088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}