'No way to unleash US innovation’: more research chaos as the US government shuts down

A US government shutdown, triggered on 1 October when the Republican Party and Democrats in Congress failed to reach agreement on a spending bill for the new fiscal year, has thrown the country’s research enterprise into yet more chaos. Not only are prominent research policy figures and science organisations concerned by this development, but so too is the Republican chairman of the congressional committee that oversee a large part of the nation’s research.

There have been three US government shutdowns since 2013, including one that lasted 17 days under President Obama. But the longest one by far took place in late 2018 during Donald Trump’s first term as president, lasting more than a month and resulting in the loss of about $3 billion (£2.2 billion), or 0.02% of the country’s GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office.