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At flabbergasting speed, we currently see a very unappetising authoritarian turn in the United States under President Donald Trump. Numerous executive orders, often on questionable legal basis, target international cooperation and funding for academia, which, in the mind of “strongmen”, merit little attention, anyways. Most importantly, though, these decrees target the state’s capabilities to operate in the public interest. Science is one of the first functions treated with disdain and hostility. At the heart of the discussion lies the self-governance and public function of science as well as its natural mode of transnational cooperation, with dramatic implications for human well-being.
The extreme right and science since the return of Donald Trump
With the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, a public disengagement from climate research was feared – and expected. We have seen ideological challenges to scientific findings throughout history – yet, they are not simply tales from an overcome past, when the likes of Galileo Galilei challenged religious dogma. Science, like so many things now, has become fundamentally politicised over the past few years – and massively over the last few weeks!
The US has seen numerous research funds withheld or cancelled over the last years, as documented by the Silencing Science Tracker by the Columbia Law School. Targeted topics in research, to name but a few, include climate research, including critical energy works; medical and health research, specifically regarding vaccination and those with gender implications; environmental protection issues; and some “old chestnuts” such as the teaching of evolution theory in schools or research into gun control.
Under the new administration, the scale of the attack on science has substantially increased, including changing data sets with political directives. Not least mass layoffs of staff in the Department of Health and Human Services are endangering crucial research. An attack on the National Institute for Health – a key public research institution and research funder – and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) will, effectively, increase global risks, too, as infectious diseases such as measles might spread again. Drastic cuts in US aid funding have repercussions on humanitarian situations globally – and also long-term effects, e.g. in scaled-down research on global public health. At the same time, the US National Research Foundation began to scan its funding, targeting specifically topics related to diversity, equality and inclusion. A list of “forbidden words” is circulating, including the terms: women, disability, bias, status, trauma, Black, Hispanic communities, as well as socioeconomic, ethnicity and systemic. Banning these words in research proposals closes down certain critical reflections, including in international relations, as aspects in research cannot be expressed without fear of negative sanctions. This is systematically undermining sciences own quality control mechanisms and its self-governance.
Science and its self-governance
Science funding differs substantially between states and societies: within the OECD, the US reported about 3.5% of GNI for research funds, while Germany stood at 3% of GDP. Top investor was Israel at 5.8%, while Costa Rica came last in the statistics at a mere 0.3% of GDP (all figures for 2021). These numbers, mind you, comprise all spending on research – by “all resident companies, research institutes, university, and government laboratories”, i.e. irrespective of whether it was public or private funding. The distinction is not a sharp line, as private laboratories also receive public funds for research and the rapid development of COVID vaccines in 2020/21.
Much of the science system receives public funding, as research serves a public function: it generates and shares knowledge for the common good. And it is a system that governs itself both within national science contexts and in transnational and also interdisciplinary communities of scientific practice. The science system in liberal democracies is a predominantly self-governing system – the sociologist Niklas Luhmann would speak of “autopoiesis” (self-creation) – with quality control and support to young researchers based on mechanisms within science.
The system is certainly not flawless, and has in recent years seen discussions about precarious employments of early career researchers in a highly competitive (and some argue: exploitative) system, in Germany discussed under the label of “Ich bin Hanna”, including documented forms of power abuse, for instance, in Germany’s prestigious Max Planck Society. Self-regulation also carries risks of perpetuating biases and exclusion, as systemically criticised, for instance, by the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa, boosting calls for “decolonisation” of curricula and research. Furthermore, while quality control of research is done through non-remunerated peer-reviews, academic publications generate profits for scientific publishing houses by fees for access to knowledge (“paywalls”) that often exclude researchers from less affluent contexts, not least so in the Global South. Pledges for more open-access publishing point to the problem and offer some solutions within the system. Whether that is sufficient is in discussion. And last, but not least, digitalisation and specifically AI challenges the system in multiple ways – with beneficial use in medicine and yet unclear effects in social sciences and the humanities, raising new ethical questions in all scientific disciplines.
The point, however, is that there are open discussions and the system continues to question and improve itself – as long as this self-organisation is not prevented, undermined or its ability systematically destroyed with self-censorship taking over. Research ethics and professional bodies to debate and decide on them are known in the humanities and required in social sciences, too. At the core of the system is the collection and generation of empirical data: Where are fundamental changes in our social and natural environment? How do they come about and what role do different societal groups play? How can human societies mitigate and adapt to drastically changing conditions? Exploring these questions entails systematically testing and questioning systems of knowing and governing. This makes it particularly threatening to authoritarian rule, and explains aspirations to fight academic freedom and effectively put sciences under state control.
Authoritarian rule and science
Most targeted by authoritarian rulers are usually social sciences, as they critically explore questions of power, participation or exclusion. Research on political settings and citizens’ (dis-)engagement in political processes were always within strict and policed settings – including absolute taboo topics that might get too close to the “supreme authority” – in One-Party states like China or settings that claim a link to divine authority like Iran. In some contexts, we have seen vilification of whole strands of scientific research, not least so climate sciences and sustainability. Under Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, sustainability had effectively become a taboo word; his government openly expressing contempt for climate and environmental protection, playing down the COVID19-pandemic as “a little flu” (gripezinha).
Other knowledge, however, is deemed highly relevant and necessary in all societies, such as technical skills, engineering, and much of the natural and human sciences. In fact, countries like China excel in these topics, from electric engineering via astronomy to computational sciences, and consequently faring high in university rankings. Mind you, policies on environmental protection or AI also offer useful tools for social and political control. Similarly, human sciences and health research might be regarded as useful as a tool “for progress”, but clearly within limits. Medical and technological progress, mind you, requires particular ethical consideration, as was illustrated by a violation of ethical codes in the case of CRIPR gene-editing technology and the use on human embryos in China.
Consequences for European science cooperation and science diplomacy
The current US administration is purposefully cutting science funding, openly questioning the value of independent research and development and promoting a culture of hate towards academia. Following some of the media reports, it seems that in a post-truth society, a simple claim of the politically powerful is deemed sufficient to invalidate whole bodies of research and scientific literature. What does that mean for Europe?
The European Science Space is one of the largest globally, tightly intertwined with partner institutions around the globe. A substantial weakening of the US science system means that, first, in transregionally organised research fields, such as climate or global health, collaboration projects are weakened or even put to a hold. In the field of climate science this for instance means that data series are interrupted to a degree that the foundations of earth system modelling are effected. Can Europe fill the gap opened by the US? So far it remains still unclear how much damage the current US administration indeed will cause to international science cooperation such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), FutureEarth or Belmont Forum. Yet, as US funding cuts also open up in other areas, such as international development, including financing the United Nations, or in the field of military security, a top priority for Europe, it is unlikely that Europe can simply fill the gap. Instead, we propose the following:
- Continue collaborating with US academic institutions as far as possible, while safeguarding European principles of free and independent research, including values and interests in the fields of diversity, equality and inclusion. Safeguard the independence of mind and practice.
- Identify which areas of research are especially affected by the current US administrations attacks of science and build crucial elements into Europe’s approach. Here, a focus on those areas of immediate relevance to (a) addressing the global challenges such as climate, biodiversity and global health, as well as (b) to the agenda of the European Commission under the umbrellas of the EU Green Industrial Deal and the Global Gateway Initiative deems recommendable.
- Seek international cooperation outside of the US to fill the gaps opening up, especially in the science cooperation formats for addressing the global challenges (i.e. climate, biodiversity and global health). Here it is of utmost important to not only continue the research itself, but also the science to policy work taking place through bodies such as IPCC / IPBES.
- Seeking collaboration with other regions and their organisations, such as ASEAN or the African Union, and engage in exchanges on science policy and investments into the science systems in a currently reshaping, new world order.
