Update. "Trump team freezes new NSF awards — and could soon axe hundreds of grants"
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01263-0

"All new research grants have been frozen at the US National Science Foundation (#NSF) — an action apparently ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency (#DOGE)… Documents seen by Nature show that two members of DOGE…have been given access to grant management systems and used that access to prevent grants from receiving funding that were already approved but awaiting finalization. 'That, of course, raises the hairs on the back of our neck in a worrisome way,' an NSF programme officer says."

#Censorship #DefendResearch #Funding #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "U.S. climate data websites go dark"
https://www.science.org/content/article/us-climate-data-websites-go-dark

"U.S. scientists, state policymakers, farmers, and others who depend on up-to-date #climate data on Thursday confronted an information blackout from federal regional climate centers across much of the country. “Unfortunately, all data and services offered under the base contract, including this website, will be unavailable unless and until funding is resumed,” a statement on the Southern Regional Climate Center’s website read…The disruption appears to be a temporary paperwork bottleneck within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (#NOAA), rather than a policy decision by agency leadership, officials at several of the centers say. The centers are managed by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. But they are housed chiefly at #universities operating under 5-year agreements. The contracts for payment are approved each year. The last annual cycle ended on 16 April."

#Climate #DefendResearch #Funding #OpenData #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "Trump’s #DOJ Sends Intimidating Letters to Medical #Journals for Supposedly Being ‘Partisan’ "
https://gizmodo.com/trumps-doj-sends-intimidating-letters-to-medical-journals-for-supposedly-being-partisan-2000591550

"The U.S. Department of Justice has sent letters to medical journals for supposedly being “partisan,” heavily suggesting that they’re spreading misinformation and are influenced by “funders” rather than medical science. Gizmodo has confirmed that the journal CHEST, a peer-reviewed publication on pulmonary care published by the American College of Chest Physicians, received a letter this week. And MedPage Today reports that at least two other journals have received similar intimidating letters."

PS: The letter to Harvard shows that the Trump admin wants to control what universities teach. These letters show that it also wants to control what scholarly journals publish.

#AcademicFreedom #Censorship #DefendResearch #Medicine #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "#NIH freezes funds to #Harvard and four other universities, but can’t tell them."
https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-freezes-funds-harvard-and-four-other-universities-can-t-tell-them
(#paywalled)

"After freezing all grants to #Columbia University last week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is now stopping grant and contract payments to Harvard University and four other universities [#Brown, #Northwestern, #Cornell, #WeillCornell Medical School]…The move will both block new funding and halt payments to investigators currently working on NIH projects…The Department of Health and Human Services (#HHS)…instructed NIH staff not to provide any communication to these institutions or to Columbia about whether the funds are frozen or why, according to the email."

#Academia #DefendResearch #Funding #Trump #USPol #USPolitics
@academicchatter

Update. "Over 150 US university presidents sign letter decrying #Trump administration"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/21/us-university-presidents-trump-administration

"More than 150 presidents of US colleges and universities have signed a statement denouncing the Trump administration’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” with higher education – the strongest sign yet that US educational institutions are forming a unified front against the government’s extraordinary attack on their independence. The statement, published early on Tuesday by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, comes weeks into the administration’s mounting campaign against higher education, and hours after Harvard University became the first school to sue the government over threats to its funding."

The letter itself:
https://www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-call-for-constructive-engagement

EDIT. As of April 24, 2025, the tally of signatures is up to 425.

EDIT. As of August 1, 2025, the tally of signatures is up to 660.

#AACU #Academia #DefendResearch #USPol #USPolitics
@academicchatter

Update. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (#NOAA) maintains a public list of datasets and databases it's terminating.
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/about/documents-reports/notice-of-changes

Transparency about pulling the plug on transparency.

#Climate #DefendResearch #OpenData #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "How #Trump is following #Project2025’s radical roadmap to defund science."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00780-2

"Indiscriminate firings. Terminated grants. Cancelled programmes. The barrage of actions by US President Donald Trump has shocked the country’s research community over the past two months. Yet, much of it was planned out years in advance and laid out publicly…The Wall Street Journal found that more than half of Trump’s executive orders (EOs) align with Project 2025 recommendations. And most of its 40 listed authors are now key figures on Trump’s team…Here, Nature examines science-related policies from Project 2025 that have already come to pass, and which ones might be on the horizon."

#Censorship #DefendResearch #Funding #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "National Science Foundation Terminates Hundreds of Active Research Awards"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/science/trump-national-science-foundation-grants.html

"In January, the #Trump administration attempted to freeze grant payments for existing awards at the #NSF. A temporary restraining order lifted the freeze. The order also said that the agency could not terminate active awards to comply with President Trump’s executive orders…In a statement on Friday, the NSF said that its grant cancellations were not in violation of the temporary restraining order. When asked by The Times to provide clarification on the legality of the grant cancellations, the agency declined to comment…On Friday, the NSF went further, canceling grants supporting ongoing research."

#Censorship #DefendResearch #Funding #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "The federal Department of Education [#ED] maintains an open access database of more than 2 million documents [Education Resources Information Center, #ERIC] dating back to the 1960s. It will cease operating Wednesday due to #DOGE cuts."
https://www.governing.com/policy/major-education-resource-set-to-shut-down-this-week

PS: I use many sources in my attempt to stay on top of what's happening with #OpenAccess, #OpenScience, #OpenEducation, and so on. ERIC has been one of the stalwarts.

#DefendResearch #Education #Funding #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. The #OpenAccess Biodiversity Heritage Library (#BHL) needs a new home. The #Smithsonian will stop hosting it next January.
https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2025/04/new-future-for-bhl.html

#Biodiversity #DefendResearch #ILoveBHL #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "Funding cut for landmark study of women's health."
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/23/nx-s1-5372892/womens-health-initiative-research-funding-gets-cut

"The #Trump administration is shutting down most of a landmark federal project studying women's health, stunning researchers around the country…The study, begun in the 1990s, has produced a series of groundbreaking results and was continuing to gather valuable data about women's health…Neither the #NIH, which funds the study, nor #HHS, which oversees the NIH, responded to NPR's questions about the matter…One big question is what will happen to the huge repository of #data…which represents a treasure trove that could be mined to make yet more important discoveries."

#DefendResearch #Funding #Medicine #OpenData #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. The long-running and wide-ranging study of women's health that #NIH cut two days was back on track the next day.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/health/womens-health-initiative-cuts.html

PS: This is another sign that some protests work. It's also an example of thoughtless pillaging, as opposed to a careful attempt to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.

#DefendResearch #Medicine #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "Groups Decry Loss of Funding for 'Critically Important' GI Disease Network."
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/115251

"Physicians and patient advocates are sounding the alarm after the #NIH abruptly withdrew a grant renewal application for the Consortium of Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disease Researchers (#CEGIR), the only clinical care network for eosinophilic gastroenteritis patients in the U.S."

The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (#AAAAI) says that NIH defunded the project, not on the merits, but because it uses "foreign components".
https://www.aaaai.org/about/news/news/2025/grant

#Censorship #DefendResearch #Funding #Medicine #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. At least five medical journals have now confirmed that the #Trump Justice Dept sent them letters asking what steps they take to deal with "misinformation" and "competing viewpoints".
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/115256

The three willing to be named are:

1. 𝘊𝘏𝘌𝘚𝘛, from the American College of Chest Physicians
2. 𝘖𝘣𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘴 & 𝘎𝘺𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺, from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
3. 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘌𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘦, from the Massachusetts Medical Society.

#DefendResearch #Medicine #USPol #USPolitics

Update from Gary Price (@infodocket). "Accessing Archived Material From #ERIC (Education Resource Information Center) via the #InternetArchive."
https://www.infodocket.com/2025/04/23/accessing-archived-material-from-eric-via-the-internet-archive/

"Here are a couple ways to access archived material from ERIC on the open web. We will do our best to keep this post updated if/when new open web sources become available to access ERIC material."

#DefendResearch #Education #Preservation #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update from Lisa Schiff (@lschiff), "Protecting your work – and your values – in US higher education."
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/protecting-your-work-and-your-values-us-higher-education

"With US higher education under attack from the federal government, what can scholars do to ensure their research is preserved and to stand up for academic freedom? Lisa Schiff, a co-author of the Declaration to Defend Research."

#Academia #Censorship #DefendResearch #Preservation #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics
@academicchatter

Update. "Impacts of Restrictions on Federal Grant Funding in Physics and Astronomy Graduate Programs."
https://ww2.aip.org/statistics/impacts-of-restrictions-on-federal-grant-funding-in-physics-and-astronomy-graduate-programs

"37% of the responding department chairs [in #physics and #astronomy] said they expect to enroll fewer first-year graduate students in the fall of 2025 than they did the previous year…The number of first-year graduate students in physics and astronomy is anticipated to decline by about 13%. This is a projected decline of about 600 first-year graduate students."

#DefendResearch #Funding #ERC #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. People receiving an #NIH grant must now promise not to participate in #DEI programs or any boycott of #Israel or companies doing business in Israel. NIH calls this a "civil rights" condition on the grant.
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-090.html

#CivilRights #DefendResearch #Medicine #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. Noam Ross and Scott Delaney maintain a crowdsourced database of #NIH grant terminations. Extremely helpful.
https://airtable.com/appjhyo9NTvJLocRy/shrNto1NNp9eJlgpA?Ffj6Q=allRecords

Meagan Parrish has put together a useful overview of what it contains.
https://www.pharmavoice.com/news/nih-hhs-cuts-trump-columbia-yale/746315/

Ross and Delaney also maintain a database of #NSF grant terminations. Right now it lists 501.
https://airtable.com/appGKlSVeXniQZkFC/shrFxbl1YTqb3AyOO

#DefendResearch #Funding #Medicine #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "Scientist Who Helped Prove Humans Changed the Climate Watches Evidence Being Erased"
https://www.sfpublicpress.org/scientist-who-helped-prove-humans-changed-the-climate-watches-evidence-being-erased/

"Ben Santer never imagined that 12 words could change the trajectory of his life and humanity’s understanding of what it was doing to the planet: 'The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.' He wrote that sentence as the lead author of a pivotal chapter in the 1995 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [#IPCC]…Now the #data sources that made that discovery possible are under threat… 'There’s real concern that the data may go away, that the satellites, measurements that have been collected for 40 plus years, may not continue.'"

#Censorship #Climate #DefendResearch #OpenData #Preservation #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. I just did an interview for the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (#ZBW, @ZBW_MediaTalk) on the impact of #Trump admin actions on US research and higher education. Thanks to @avatter for the good questions.
https://www.zbw-mediatalk.eu/2025/04/peter-suber-on-science-in-danger-host-your-open-and-uncensored-research-in-more-than-one-place-and-preferably-more-than-one-country/

EDIT. ZBW has now released a German translation of the interview.
https://www.zbw-mediatalk.eu/de/2025/04/peter-suber-ueber-gefaehrdete-wissenschaft-hosten-sie-ihre-offene-und-unzensierte-forschung-an-mehr-als-einem-ort-und-moeglichst-in-mehr-als-einem-land/

#Academia #Censorship #DefendResearch #Takedowns #USPol #USPolitics
@academicchatter

Update. "US dismisses all authors of National Climate Assessment."
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/trump-administration-dismisses-all-authors-key-climate-report-email-says-2025-04-28/

"President Donald Trump's administration has dismissed all contributors to the U.S. government's signature study that informs federal and local governments on how to prepare for climate change impacts…The dismissal of nearly 400 contributors to the sixth National Climate Assessment, which is mandated by Congress, leaves the future of the report in doubt."

#Climate #DefendResearch #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "#NIH Grant Cuts Aren't Saving Money. They're Wasting It."
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-04-17/nih-grant-cuts-are-turning-out-to-be-a-waste-of-money?embedded-checkout=true

"The Trump administration’s waves of massive cuts to funding at the NIH are framed as a recasting of research priorities and a way to save taxpayer money. Another way to frame it is an exercise in massive waste. In terminating nearly 750 NIH grants over the past two months, the government dumped years of investment down the drain…Funding was pulled just as some of these projects were getting off the ground, while others were rounding into their last year of funding — a point where enough data would finally be collected to offer concrete results. Our analysis found that nearly 40% of the canceled R01 grants supported research that had yet to produce findings, meaning all of the agency’s prior investments won’t benefit the public."

#DefendResearch #Funding #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "‘The Classified Catalog’ launches to track secrecy news"
https://freedom.press/the-classifieds/the-classified-catalog-launches-to-track-secrecy-news/

"The [Trump] administration is eroding the information environment in ways this country has never seen. More secrets are being kept, more data is being deleted, and more government employees are being censored. This excessive secrecy prevents the public from meaningfully participating in self-government on domestic policies from climate and health issues to foreign affairs. To combat this, Freedom of the Press Foundation (#FPF) began tracking reports of government secrecy in January 2025."

#Censorship #DefendResearch #Journalism #Monitoring #Secrecy #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "Will US science survive Trump 2.0?"
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01295-6

"In just the first three months of his second term, US President Donald Trump has destabilized eight decades of government support for science. His administration has fired thousands of government scientists, bringing large swathes of the country’s research to a standstill and halting many clinical trials. It has threatened to slash billions in funding from US research universities and has terminated more than 1,000 grants in areas such as climate change, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and HIV prevention. This looks likely to be just the beginning."

#Censorship #DefendResearch #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. Usha Lee McFarling has put together a very useful timeline of #Trump's major actions on science and health in his first 100 days.
https://www.statnews.com/2025/04/24/trump-100-days-timeline-science-health-nih-cdc-fda-hhs/

#Censorship #DefendResearch #Medicine #Takedowns #USPol #USPolitics

Update. One of many good points by Alice Meadows and Suze Kundu:
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/04/30/trump-v-research-how-we-could-turn-the-threats-into-opportunities/

When #Trump cuts budgets and staffing at science agencies, and terminates research grants, #journalists should write about the effects on people (less cancer research, more cancer), not just the effects on universities (less funding, more belt-tightening).

#DefendResearch #Journalism #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "Accelerating Access to Research Results: New Implementation Date for the 2024 #NIH Public Access Policy"
https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/accelerating-access-research-results-new-implementation-date-2024-nih-public-access-policy

"I am excited to announce that one of my first actions as NIH Director is pushing the accelerator on policies to make NIH research findings freely and quickly available to the public. The 2024 Public Access Policy, originally slated to go into effect on December 31, 2025, will now be effective as of July 1, 2025."

PS: This announcement is from the Trump-appointed NIH director, #JayBhattacharya. It's another sign that Trump has not revoked or weakened the #OSTP #NelsonMemo, despite other attacks on research, including #takedowns of #OpenAccess texts and data. At the NIH, the largest funding agency, implementation of the Nelson memo is even speeding up.

EDIT. Another NIH reaffirmation of its NelsonMemo OA policy. From Lyric Jorgenson, NIH Ass Director for Science Policy, April 30, 2025: "We revised our Public Access Policy to eliminate the embargo period so that researchers, students, and members of the public have rapid access to these findings. NIH leadership believes strongly that transparency in all we do is critical and that we should not waste a moment in fulfilling our promise to the public."
https://osp.od.nih.gov/transforming-transparency-through-policy/

#DefendResearch #Medicine #USPol #USPolitics

Update. #RFKJr has ordered the #NIH to stop studying #ebola and half a dozen other fatal infectious diseases.
https://www.wired.com/story/hhs-niaid-irf-ebola-disease-research-stop/

#DefendResearch #Medicine #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "Exclusive: #NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01396-2

"Staff members at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) were told on 30 April to “stop awarding all funding actions until further notice,” according to an email seen by Nature. The policy prevents the NSF, one of the world’s biggest supporters of basic research, from awarding new research grants and from supplying allotted funds for existing grants, such as those that receive yearly increments of money. The email does not provide a reason for the freeze and says that it will last 'until further notice'."

#DefendResearch #Funding #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "#NIH under siege."
https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-insiders-trump-dismantling-and-destroying-everything

"Nearly 3 months into President Donald Trump’s administration, NIH in-house scientists and other workers [are] reeling from mass layoffs of colleagues; the removal of leaders; and limits on travel, communication, and purchasing that have shut the agency off from the outside world, hamstrung experiments, and crushed the community’s spirits…The atmosphere is one of 'chaos and fear and frustration and anger,' said a senior scientist with NIH’s intramural research program…This scientist added: 'It’s this feeling of utter powerlessness and repeated insults.'"

#DefendResearch #Funding #Medicine #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "Education Department restarts online library #ERIC."
https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-restart-eric-ed-library/

"The US Department of Education announced Monday that it would continue to operate its online library, known as ERIC, after allowing it to lapse last week. The Department of Government Efficiency (#DOGE) had sought significant cuts to the document repository that is used by 14 million people a year, and allowed funding to run out on April 23…A new, albeit much smaller contract was signed on April 24…[Matthew Soldner, the acting director of the Institute of Education Sciences] said that 'no content has been removed or deleted from ERIC. The preservation policy is unchanged [and] we will not remove an article in ERIC unless it is retracted by the publisher.'"

#DefendResearch #Education #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. PEN America (@pen_ev) is pulling together separate federal agency lists of banned words to make one, growing master list. It currently has more than 350 entries.
https://pen.org/banned-words-list/

#Censorship #DefendResearch #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "#Trump says he’s yanking #Harvard’s tax-exempt status."
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/02/trump-harvard-tax-exempt-status-00323192

PS: We could say that Trump has moved from threat to action. Or we could say that he's started another two-step dance to energize the MAGA base, first with a futile gesture ("look at my strong action!") and second with the inevitable loss in court ("look at those radical judges!").

#Academia #DefendResearch #Nonprofits #Universities #USLaw #USPol #USPolitics
@academicchatter

Update. "#NIH halts funding for new projects with foreign collaborators, citing national security concerns."
https://www.statnews.com/2025/05/01/nih-halts-research-funding-for-projects-involving-foreign-collaborators/

"The National Institutes of Health announced Thursday it will no longer allow subawards to foreign institutions, as part of a national security-minded overhaul to how the agency manages its $47 billion research funding portfolio. The change is likely to cause immediate disruptions to research projects around the world."

#Collaboration #DefendResearch #Funding #Medicine #Nationalism #NationalSecurity #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "Trump proposes unprecedented budget cuts to US science."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01397-1

"The budget document released by the White House on Friday for the upcoming fiscal year…would cut all non-defence spending by 23% but targets the US National Science Foundation [#NSF] for a 56% funding reduction, and would slash the budget of the US National Institutes of Health [#NIH] by roughly 40%. The Environmental Protection Agency [#EPA], which on Friday also announced plans to dismantle its primary research division, would be hit by a 55% cut as the administration seeks to eliminate what it calls “radical” and “woke” #climate programmes."

#DefendResearch #Funding #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "#NIH blocks researchers in China, Russia and other countries from multiple databases."
https://www.fiercebiotech.com/research/nih-bans-researchers-china-russia-and-other-countries-multiple-databases

"The #Trump administration has blocked access to multiple data repositories maintained by the NIH…The ban is effective April 4 and applies to institutions in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela…The numerous controlled-access data repositories (CADRs) that are affected by the rule hold data on a vast swath of subjects including cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, mental health disorders, substance abuse and adolescent brain development."

#Censorship #DefendResearch #Medicine #Nationalism #OpenData #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

Update. Kudos to the American Meteorological Society (#AMS) and the American Geophysical Union (#AGU). Less than a week after the #Trump admin fired the 400 scientists working on the sixth National Climate Assessment (#NCA), due in 2028, these two scientific societies stepped up to continue the work in a new form.
https://news.agu.org/press-release/agu-and-ams-join-forces-on-special-collection-to-maintain-momentum-of-research-supporting-the-u-s-national-climate-assessment/

#Climate #DefendResearch #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "One of California’s largest collections of history could go dark."
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/california-newspapers-collection-budget-cuts-20309491.php

"One of #California’s largest collections of digitized #newspapers, going back nearly 200 years and spanning approximately 54 million articles, could disappear due to gutted state #funding. The unexpected news has delivered a heavy blow to historians, journalists, researchers and educators who rely on the archives for their work…The California Digital Newspapers Collection, housed at UC Riverside’s Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research, said on its website that its future “is in jeopardy” after…its budget was completely decimated, leaving [it] with just a few weeks to source $300,000 or face the possibility of getting shut down."

#DefendResearch #Takedowns #USPol #USPolitics