A session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) recent annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona celebrated the 50th anniversary of the organisation’s R&D Budget and Policy Program. Norine Noonan and Susan Coady Kemnitzer, who have now retired and previously held senior leadership positions at science agencies and the White House, had a lot to say about the situation facing universities and research funders in the US. Rebecca Trager caught up with them.
Can you tell me about yourself and why you are at this meeting?
Norine Noonan (NN): I am now retired and a professor emerita at the University of South Florida in St Petersburg. But I headed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Research and Development from 1998 to 2001 and also served in a senior level at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) overseeing funding for major research agencies like the US National Science Foundation (NSF). In addition, I am the secretary of the AAAS section on Societal Impacts, Science and Engineering, having earned a PhD in biochemistry and cell biology. And I’m also the secretary of the Florida Academy of Sciences, which is the only professional organisation in the state that represents all disciplines of science and is about 90 years old.
Susan Coady Kemnitzer (SCK): I am also retired but was a longtime budget examiner at OMB and worked at the NSF for about four decades. I served as deputy director of the chemical, bioengineering, environmental and transport system division within the NSF’s engineering directorate as well. I am also a fellow of the AAAS. I am the past treasurer of SkyTruth, a non-profit based in Shepherdstown, West Virginia that uses state-of-the-art remote sensing and mapping to facilitate environmental awareness. In addition, I provide pro bono advice to faculty at Shepherd University in West Virginia on federal government and private foundation funding opportunities.
What did you say during the Q&A?
NN: I commented that we’re in the middle of a giant experiment right now with the R&D budget that hasn’t been seen since perhaps before the second world war. There is so much uncertainty in the research community currently – about what to do, how you proceed, what we should tell our students, who’s going to do the research – and that will potentially have a generational effect.
This seems to be more of a philosophical attack on the nature of science itself
Susan Coady Kemnitzer
SCK: I recounted that I started the first science and engineering indicators report at the NSF back in 1972 to track the US’s pipeline of scientists and engineers with data on things like research doctoral graduates from US universities, as well as the country’s graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in science and engineering. So, I have been thinking about this for a long time.
What’s different about the current research funding landscape in the US?
SCK: The other times that I have seen budget cuts proposed they were part of a larger economic package. This seems to be more of a philosophical attack on the nature of science itself. And that’s a much different situation.
NN: You’re right about that because I think it’s aimed at the entire basis of evidence-based decision-making. The administration seems to want to make decisions on ‘vibes’ instead. And they’re removing the experts, and when you do that then anybody’s information is as good as anybody else’s. That then allows people who don’t know anything about the subject to dominate the conversation. The most important thing you all can do right now is decide what data to collect, and figure it out and start collecting it.
We were the beacon of R&D light; students came to the US from all over the world and trained here. We’ve trained half the science advisers in the developed countries, and their staffs. But now they’re saying, ‘Never mind, we’re not going to send our kids to the US’. And that does generational damage and we need to be collecting data about this. Because if we don’t, then no one’s going to remember the history of this time; it will be memory-holed.
How is this particular period in US history unique?
NN: This moment in time is different not so much due to the budget reductions for agencies proposed by the White House – because the Congress has mitigated some of the damage – but because there has been some very significant damage in agencies that we don’t normally think about. That includes the US Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which both had robust R&D programmes around climate change.
We’re not going to recover from this for a generation
Norine Noonan
The organisations that I led in the EPA now have been essentially demolished, like the EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD), for example. And not all the people in ORD were offered positions in other parts of the EPA, many of these people with institutional knowledge are gone. The EPA-funded Star [Science to Achieve Results] fellowship programme for graduate students supported postdoctoral and graduate student positions in research laboratories. And outside of that fellowship programme, the EPA collaborated with research institutions to support student training. Even the NSF Graduate Research Fellowships programme, which supports promising young scientists early in their graduate careers, has been reduced. I haven’t kept up with all the details of what has happened because it’s too painful.
Moreover, the message to foreign students is that they are not wanted here and the US government will actively persecute them if they speak out on any topic that the administration dislikes. That has eased a bit, but it persisted for almost all of last year and has sent a strong message to international scholars. And for American students, what it says is that science is being devalued here in the US. And we’re not going to recover from this for a generation, 20 years. I may not live to see the recovery in my lifetime, and that is very hurtful to me personally and it is also extremely damaging to the R&D enterprise in this country.
Where do the states fit into the picture?
SCK: In the end, the people who are making the funding decisions in Congress want to know how many people are going to be impacted in their district, how much employment is going to be hit. I know it would be difficult, but it would be a good thing for the AAAS to start some pilot projects to ascertain how these cuts actually affect the constituents of the congressional members who are making the funding decisions. Alessandra Zimmermann, who directs the AAAS’s R&D budget and policy programme, responded from the podium that she will certainly try to pursue this but said it will be very difficult since the programme involves essentially just her.
NN: This is a unique time, and states are banding together to try to continue public health outreach, communication and even research that has been abandoned by the federal government. This includes California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington.
SCK: The state of California, for instance, is joining international health organisations like the World Health Organization (WHO), which to date has only been joined by nations. States are not allowed to become full members of the WHO but in January, right after President Trump withdrew the US from the WHO, California became the first US state to join a technical network coordinated by the international agency. Other states then followed suit.
How do we measure the impact of Harvard University reducing its graduate admissions by 50%
Norine Noonan
In many of these states, universities and medical centres are huge and very important employers. So that goes to the health of the economy of the state overall and the politicians on Capitol Hill will really pay attention to that because employment opportunities for their constituents are obviously on their radar screens.
NN: Yes, we have some significant opportunity at the state-level. We are talking about states with really excellent universities, very strong R&D programmes and robust innovation communities. They feel the need to act to preserve and leverage these strengths. I really think states may end up being the reservoirs of talent.
How can research navigate these turbulent times?
NN: People need to think deeply about what data to collect. How do we measure the impact of not having foreign students in our graduate programme, for example? How do we measure the impact of Harvard University reducing its graduate admissions by 50%? We need to talk to economists, social scientists and others.
The most important action that the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program can take right now is to decide what data to collect and start collecting it. Because we will really need a history of this time, and if we don’t gather the data now about what is happening then we won’t have that information.
SCK: It is really important to focus right now on how many people are going to be unemployed or otherwise affected by the reduction in science agency budgets and research grants under the current Trump administration. Plus, most importantly, how is this going to be a negative influence on our young people’s choice of careers. Our future is at stake.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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