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https://www.science.org/content/article/it-s-nightmare-u-s-funding-cuts-threaten-academic-science-jobs-all-levels>
"It was a conversation neither wanted to have. Last month, University of
Maryland professor Anne Simon broke the difficult news to Xiaobao Ying that she
didn’t have funding to extend his assistant research scientist position beyond
July as they had originally planned. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had
agreed last year to fund a field trial for their team’s work on citrus
greening, an economically important crop disease, which would have covered his
salary for 2 years. But after President Donald Trump’s administration took
over, the funds were frozen. “It’s very hard because you’re devastating
people’s lives,” Simon says of the conversation with Ying. “I’ve never had to
do this in 38 years.”
Ying, a single father who has worked in Simon’s lab for 5 years, is now
scrambling to find another research job. He’s only seen one position that he
felt qualified to apply for. “I don’t think it will be easy,” he says.
“Everywhere funding is short.” In the meantime, he plans to try to get by as an
Uber driver.
Similar conversations are taking place across the country as the federal
government has paused or terminated billions of dollars of grants, proposed
slashing research funding by more than 40% for key research agencies in the
next fiscal year, and tried—so far without success—to cut overhead payments to
universities. In response, graduate schools have reduced the size of their
incoming cohorts and faculty have been anxiously watching their budgets and
worrying about their own careers. “My lab is definitely going to shrink,” says
Arthi Jayaraman, a chemical engineering professor at the University of
Delaware.
So is U.S. academic science as a whole—perhaps dramatically. Numbers released
in May by the National Science Foundation (NSF) indicate that if Congress
approves the cuts to the agency proposed by the White House, the number of
early-career researchers it supports could fall by 78%—from 95,700
undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs during this fiscal year to
21,400 in 2026. Young researchers supported by other agencies would also be
hit, and even senior faculty worry about their future. “It’s a nightmare,”
Simon says. “I really fear for the future of science.” (NSF declined to comment
for this story.)"
Via Dave Farber.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
