President Trump seeks control of science funding

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought appears before the House Budget Committee at the U.S. Capitol on April 15. The budget office recently proposed a rule change that would give political appointees more decision-making power over research grants. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images hide caption

The Trump administration is pursuing a bureaucratic rule change that could allow for greater political influence over billions of dollars in federal research grants. The new rule would have a broad impact on research fields, including housing and transportation. Health and science funding would be most significantly affected.

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"Although research has bipartisan support in the US Congress, and trust in science is above 75% across the country, the Trump administration seems as determined as ever to mortally wound the nation's scientific enterprise," Holden Thorp, editor of Science magazine, wrote in an editorial about the proposal.

Published in the Federal Register on May 29, experts say the proposed changes would both codify the administration's strategies to dismantle certain fields of study in the U.S. and lend it new authority to "advance the President's policy priorities."

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In science, the impacts could reverberate across fields of research as varied as public health, vaccine testing, biotechnology, social and behavioral science and climate science.

The proposal is animating advocacy and science groups across the country.

"This would be the end of American science as we know it," said Cole Donovan, a policy analyst from the group Stand up for Science who has been organizing to protest the change. "We're gonna make sure that it doesn't fade quietly into the night."

End of peer review as the gold standard

Since the post-World War II period, the U.S. scientific community has relied heavily on a system of peer review to offer feedback on studies and maintain integrity in research. The same has been true for federal science agencies when evaluating proposals for research funding. Typically, agencies adopt recommendations from independent advisory committees on issues including vaccine schedules, environmental standards, or census methodology.

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While not legally binding, peer review in practice has been enormously influential and become part of the norms of government.

" While it's been true that peer review panels have always been treated as advisory by agencies, it was usually the combination of peer review with a non-political career expert at an agency that made the determination of whether to issue an award or not," said Donovan.

Under the new rule, peer review would not be eliminated, but political appointees — not necessarily scientists — would be required to review grants before awards are made. Critics say that effectively gives political officials veto power over projects, even when they have passed scientific peer review.

The reaction from scientists and advocates has been swift and vehement.

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" If this sort of rulemaking or rule-breaking becomes the norm, then government itself will cease to work," historian Tim Snyder said in an online forum Tuesday organized by Stand Up for Science. Snyder studies the former Soviet Union and remarked that the Trump administration's proposed rule change reminded him of "late Stalinism."

"We're asking ourselves whether we wanna repeat that Stalinist situation where people who know nothing about science are the ones who are making the decisions about what's going to go forward," said Snyder.

Others compared the moment to a period in the United States in the 1950s when government officials scrutinized people's ideology and politics rather than their credentials.

"Proposed rule would replace scientific merit with McCarthy era politics," read the headline from a statement by the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The rule change was proposed by the White House's Office of Management and Budget, which is led by Director Russell Vought. Administration officials argue that the rule change is in the interest of efficiency. In a statement, an OMB spokesperson wrote it would "improve the ability of agencies to identify and respond to waste, fraud, and abuse."

Critics say there's no evidence that the existing peer-review system needs such sweeping changes and that empowering political actors to make decisions about science is dangerous.

"When we're designing a study to a new cancer therapeutic, do you want Russell Vought — who is not a scientist — to determine which immunotherapy is ready to go into a phase three trial?" said Elizabeth Ginexi, a former staffer at the National Institutes of Health who has been speaking out against the proposed changes.

In addition to giving the administration increased authority, the proposed rule officially bans research on diversity, equity and inclusion or gender as grant conditions, and places broad prohibition on international scientific collaborations.

" We are involved in a huge amount of international collaboration," said Donovan from Stand Up for Science. "Much of the work that's considered high-impact is based on international collaboration."

Limited role for congressional pushback

Several Democratic lawmakers spoke at the meeting on Tuesday in an effort to rally support from the public.

" When promising research is denied because it doesn't fit the political agenda of the moment, the American people will pay the price," said U.S. Rep. James Walkinshaw of Virginia.

" The question isn't whether politics will influence research under this proposal," the Democratic lawmaker added. "That's the point."

Beyond exhortations to action from the public, however, Congress is unlikely to take action on the rule change.

The proposed rule is open for public comment until July 13. After that, OMB will review those comments before deciding whether to issue a final version.

In the event that it is passed, Donovan said, he anticipates it will "almost certainly" be challenged in court.