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US SCIENCE IS UNDER THREAT ― NOW SCIENTISTS ARE FIGHTING BACK  
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Heidi Ledford & Alexandra Witze
March 3, 2025
Nature [[link removed]]

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_ Researchers are organizing protests and making their voices heard
as Trump officials slash funding and lay off federal scientists. _

March for Science | April 22, 2017, NYC, credit: bc

 

Annika Barber felt like an impostor as she boarded a bus just before
sunrise on 24 February, and settled in for the long ride from New
Jersey to Washington DC.

Barber had studied neuroscience
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launched her own laboratory at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New
Jersey. She had not trained to be an activist, yet now she was on her
way to deliver a speech at a rally about proposed cuts to US research
funding [[link removed]]. When she
arrived in Washington, she picked up a blank poster provided by rally
organizers. “I would rather be in lab!” she wrote on it in big
block letters.

Across the United States, researchers are navigating uncomfortable
territory. Repeated threats to research funding
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firings of federal workers
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scientists to take on unfamiliar roles as activists
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rallies, calling legislators and forming new pressure groups.
“Historically, scientists have done a really bad job of advocating
for their own activities,” says David Meyer, a sociologist at the
University of California, Irvine. “So this is a new challenge.”

Unaccustomed role

The events of the past six weeks have compelled many scientists to
embrace that challenge. Soon after the second inauguration of US
President Donald Trump on 20 January, the new
administration attempted to freeze payments on federal grants
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it would review and potentially cancel any grant that mentioned terms
it deemed indicative of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)
programmes [[link removed]];
and issued dramatic cuts to the overhead, or ‘indirect costs’,
paid on projects funded by the US National Institutes of Health
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“All of the bad news and the chaos made it hard to know what the
best action to take was,” says Melissa Varga, science network senior
manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington DC.
“Folks just shut down.” Fear of retribution for speaking out also
played a part, she adds.

The courts temporarily halted some of the Trump administration’s
orders [[link removed]], but a
coherent message has broken through: federal support for science is
in danger [[link removed]].
Gradually, scientists began to stir, Varga says: “They’re
realizing now that doing any one thing is better than doing
nothing.”

That activism is taking many forms. On 3 March, the Union of Concerned
Scientists and 48 scientific societies released a joint letter to
Congress
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for legislators to protect taxpayer-funded research. “The actions of
this administration have already caused significant harm to American
science and are risking the health and safety of our communities”,
they said.

US researchers in planetary science
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talking about creating a new professional society to strengthen their
voice in policy matters. Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at
Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, says he has been
thinking about such a society for several years. “But the recent
attacks, because that’s what they are, on science in the US have
catalysed the need for it,” he says. “The more organized the
planetary-science community, the more effectively we can stand up and
push back against these actions.” Byrne and others will lead a
discussion at an upcoming planetary-science conference about whether
to launch such a society.

Individual researchers also have a bounty of petitions to sign,
including statements against censorship of science
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indirect-cost reductions, and cuts to space science
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research
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And professional societies have circulated tip sheets to guide
researchers who want to call their elected representatives.

Taking action

For many scientists, the big event is coming up on 7 March, at
‘Stand Up for Science’ rallies slated to take place in 32 cities
around the country. The main event, in Washington DC, is spearheaded
by a group of five researchers, most of them graduate students
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together to combat their own initial feelings of powerlessness.
“It’s been inspiring, as this has grown, to see how many people
were feeling the same way and to take action,” says Emma Courtney, a
graduate student in biology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New
York.

Another goal is for each rally to spark local news outlets into
covering the impact of science on that community, says Sam Goldstein,
who studies women’s health at the University of Florida in
Gainesville and is also co-organizing the Washington rally. Goldstein
says that when she was interviewed by a Maryland newspaper, she
researched the leading cause of death for the region, then came
prepared with examples of how biomedical research could improve
quality of life there.

Gathering with like-minded scientists at a large rally might be
cathartic, but press coverage of protests can also backfire, says Anne
Toomey, an environmental scientist at Pace University in New York
City. Such events can deepen partisan divides if, for example, the
local news focuses on angry signs that target Trump and leave
Republican supporters feeling alienated. “If you want to convince
Democrats to stand up for science, go ahead and march,” she says.
“That’s not the audience we need to reach right now. That’s not
who is in control of funding.”

Toomey also worries that some scientists have bombarded congressional
offices with calls on a wide variety of issues. Instead, she’d like
to see researchers coalesce around specific policy goals and develop
relationships with congressional staffers. “If you really want to
effect change, do what the lobbyists do,” she says. Some
professional societies will already have expertise in lobbying
Congress, she says, and researchers could support those efforts.

Small steps

One Washington DC organization, called 314 Action, hopes to help
researchers do even more. Since 2017, the group has raised more than
US$65 million to help elect Democrats with backgrounds in science and
related fields. On 28 February, 314 Action announced a new goal to get
100 physicians elected to public office by 2030. Although the focus is
on physicians, the organization expects public-health experts and
other researchers to join the effort, says Raiyan Syed, national
communications director for 314 Action.

Regardless of the path they choose, the key is for researchers to
advocate for their work even at the risk of generating some backlash,
says Meyer. “Nobody ever predicts what winds up working in
advance,” he says. “If you get some people to take off their lab
coats for an afternoon and go out to stand up for science, that’s a
positive step.”

_Are the Trump team’s actions affecting your research? __Share
information with Nature’s news team, or make suggestions for future
coverage here._ [[link removed]]

_doi: [link removed]

_More articles by Heidi Ledford._
[[link removed]] More articles by
Alexandra Witze.
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_Nature [[link removed]] is a
weekly international journal publishing the finest peer-reviewed
research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its
originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness,
accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature also
provides rapid, authoritative, insightful and arresting news and
interpretation of topical and coming trends affecting science,
scientists and the wider public. Nature's mission statement: First, to
serve scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in
any branch of science, and to provide a forum for the reporting and
discussion of news and issues concerning science. Second, to ensure
that the results of science are rapidly disseminated to the public
throughout the world, in a fashion that conveys their significance for
knowledge, culture and daily life._

* Science
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* March for Science
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* Donald Trump
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