“The ship is going down and we are powerless”: The Impact of Federal Funding Changes on Researchers Training the Next Generation of Scientists
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Introduction
Historically, federal grant terminations have been rare and almost exclusively used in cases of misconduct. Under the current presidential administration, however, grant terminations have been common, with thousands of grants terminated across federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation. Although there have been scattered reports of the impact of these terminations on individual researchers, there has not yet been a systematic investigation of the impact on the overall scientific community.
Methods
As part of a survey for a larger study, we asked researchers involved in T32 training programs how likely they would be to go into science if they were a graduate student now (Likert-type item) and how federal funding changes have affected them and their labs (open-ended). We report mean and standard deviation for the Likert-type item (1=Not at all likely, 5=Extremely likely), and we performed inductive thematic analysis to analyze the open-ended responses. Two independent raters coded responses, developed a codebook, and applied the codebook to all responses. The interrater reliability was high, κ=0.84.
Results
Of the 490 researchers invited to participate in the survey, 277 (response rate 56.5%) completed it in full. Participants were relatively unlikely to choose to pursue science again, with only about one-third being somewhat or more likely to do so. Two hundred twenty-three people responded to the open-ended item about how federal funding changes have affected them. Coding resulted in 48 unique codes which fell into four themes: Impact on Finances, Impact on Trainees, Impact on Science, and Well-being. Participants described instability in their labs, concern for trainees’ well-being and careers, concern about the future of the entire scientific enterprise, and negative impacts on their and others’ well-being.
Discussion
Our data demonstrates the significant, overwhelmingly negative impact of the changes in federal funding on researchers involved in training the next generation of scientists. Not only are they concerned about how they can continue to do the work they have dedicated their lives to, but they are also worried about the future of science in the United States. This latter concern stems not only from the decreasing availability and reliability of federal funding but also due to the impact all this is having on trainees’ ability to do their research and find jobs where they can do science. These data are a call to action to our federal agencies, institutions, other agencies, and donors who understand the value of science to support researchers through these uncertain times. Otherwise, what has taken decades to build will be eliminated by a few anti-scientific decisions.
