(1) Academic funding needs change. The grant award process is burdensome, cliquey, and too quick to fall to fads. And it could use some–but not too much–top-down strategy. The same is true for access to resources.
(2) There is a lot that is good here…
(3) Unfortunately it will be clouded by the bad stuff and be marred by its association with the administration.
Didn’t read the full report, but just from the introduction letters you can tell it’s Trump administration bullshit.
Issued grants are down and the grants that have been getting funded are more towards established researchers, not younger scientists who typically have bolder ideas. It’s clear they don’t value producing the next generation of scientific leaders and innovation.
And that’s not even getting into the difficulties for recruiting foreign PhD students now and the even bigger difficulties for these PhD holders to stay in the country (which anecdotally speaking, they all want).
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Only able to skim right now, but my thoughts are
(1) Academic funding needs change. The grant award process is burdensome, cliquey, and too quick to fall to fads. And it could use some–but not too much–top-down strategy. The same is true for access to resources.
(2) There is a lot that is good here…
(3) Unfortunately it will be clouded by the bad stuff and be marred by its association with the administration.
Oh, in case any one misses it, this is the real meat (linked as an Annex to the above… the funding priorities: [https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/White-House-Fiscal-Year-2028-RD-Priorities-Memorandum.pdf](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/White-House-Fiscal-Year-2028-RD-Priorities-Memorandum.pdf)
Didn’t read the full report, but just from the introduction letters you can tell it’s Trump administration bullshit.
Issued grants are down and the grants that have been getting funded are more towards established researchers, not younger scientists who typically have bolder ideas. It’s clear they don’t value producing the next generation of scientific leaders and innovation.
And that’s not even getting into the difficulties for recruiting foreign PhD students now and the even bigger difficulties for these PhD holders to stay in the country (which anecdotally speaking, they all want).