AAUP Presents

Academic Freedom on the Line: Science Funding

• Vineeta Singh • Season 5 • Episode 8

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We’ve all heard about the changes to federal research funding since the beginning of the Trump administration. This episode of our special series Academic Freedom on the Line takes a deeper look at the landscape of federal research funding. How is research funding allocated? What is disrupted when these funds are precipitously cut? What could this mean for the future of research in the United States? To help us answer these questions, we call on experts in the fields of federal bureaucracy and legal studies. Our guests are Mary Feeney and Ethan Prall. Feeney is the Frank and June Sackton Chair and Professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University and Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Prall is an environmental legal scholar and scientist, a Harvard Law School grad, and currently an Abess Fellow, Society of Conservation Biology Graduate Student Fellow, and doctoral candidate in environmental science and policy at the University of Miami. 


Links to resources mentioned in the conversation: 

Mary Feeney:

The biggest cuts at the NSF have been to. the EDU directorate, which funds STEM education, and that's not just funding to people developing science curriculum at the university. That's like robotics clubs at local high schools. It's kid that codes programs at the local library. It's science summer camps that kids all over America go to It's, it's not just universities.

Vineeta Singh:

Welcome to another episode of Academic Freedom on the Line, a special series of A A UP presents produced in collaboration with the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom. I'm Center fellow Vineeta Singh, and I'm here today with an episode that's all about research funding. In past episodes, we've glancingly mentioned cuts to institutions like the National Science Foundation, NSF, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the NEH, and the National Institutes of Health, or NIH. This episode digs deeper into where these cuts came from, what makes them radically different from the norm for such institutions and why we should care.

Vineeta Singh:

I'm joined by Mary Feeney, the Frank and June Saxton chair and professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. Dr. Feeney is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and previously served as the program director for the Science of Science Discovery, communication, and impact a program at the National Science Foundation, where she was from 2021 to 2024. Her research focuses on public management, nonprofit management, and science and technology policy. She helps us understand how federal research funding is allocated. How it trickles down to basic public functions and what terms like inclusion and representation mean for the people making federal funding decisions. We are joined also by Ethan Prall, an environmental legal scholar and scientist with a JD from Harvard Law School, and significant legal practice experience on federal matters. He's currently an Abess fellow, A Society of Conservation Biology, graduate student, fellow, and a doctoral candidate in Environmental Science and policy at the University of Miami. He helps us make sense of the legal obligations of research institutions and the legal avenues that researchers are pursuing to defend their work. Mary and Ethan, thank you so much for being with us today.

Mary Feeney:

Thank you.

Vineeta Singh:

Thanks.

Mary Feeney:

It's exciting to be here and continue this conversation.

Vineeta Singh:

And we're very excited to learn with you. So I think it's fair to say that most of our listeners will have a sense that the Trump administration has been using threats to federal funding as a way of getting institutions to sort of fall in line with certain ideological projects. Can you maybe help us get a better sense of what that looks like on the ground, and especially how this is different from the way that previous administrations have handled questions of research funding.

Mary Feeney:

i'll take a crack at the, the sort of first round. So a lot of scientists like to think that politics isn't a part of their job, right? Oh, we do science and science is free of politics, but. Federally funded science has has always been political, right? because deciding how to distribute taxpayer money is a political action. And so typically how that happens is federal agencies put through budgets about, they put up a budget proposal of what they wanna fund and where they think the needs are in science. And then the Congress sort of allocates budgets based on what. Representatives from different states wanna see what different universities in those states want. And so typically a lot of the sort of political engagement in science priorities is happening at the funding stage.

Mary Feeney:

The sort of large federal appropriation happens every year. So this year we're gonna increase funding on. Climate science, or we're gonna decrease funding on climate science, we're gonna increase funding on national security, or we're gonna increase funding on, pandemic response or emergency response. And so you'll see these sort of political shifts based on. Whether it's a Republican or democratic administration, you'll also see shifts in political priorities based on big events that are happening in the country, right? Post Hurricane Katrina, post COVID-19, you see some shifts in how the NIH and the NSF budgets happen, and that's because of like political negotiation and political needs and political interests.

Mary Feeney:

But then once those budgets are made, they go down to agencies and scientists make decisions about how the funding works. So the inside the NSF inside the NIH. Experts make decisions about how to distribute the funds that political actors have given them. And so that's the old system. And even within that system, you would sometimes get. Congressional, you know, actors who would do a word search and be like, we don't want funding on X, whatever the topic is. Or you would get individual states that would say, you can no longer fund research on DEI, right? This happened in 2023- 24 coming outta Texas and Florida. So you would get a state that would say, we don't like this thing. That the federal agencies are doing. And so the federal agency would sort of make some changes internally to ensure that funding is still going to researchers in Texas and Florida based on the federal appropriation, but we might adjust based on the political preferences that that state has had.

Mary Feeney:

What's happened this year is the executive branch has sort of come in and said, you can't fund research on, here's a list of words or a list of topics, and they pulled back funding that was made. You know, three years ago, two years ago, under previous appropriations, previous distributions, which has just never happened before, and they've done it with a really ideological stance of like, here's a list of words you can't use. And so then these, you know, DOGE actors come in and do a word search in a grant database, and they pull funding from certain things and so we saw this in waves of like canceling DEI research, canceling misinformation research, and now we see just sort of sweeping cuts that really don't have to do with ideology, but have to do with just cutting federal science spending. and This approach, this political interference sort of happening after things have already been reviewed, after things have already been funded is is really unheard of. And it's having sort of sweeping effects across the system because there's not a lot of rhyme and reason to it, and that creates a lot of uncertainty for folks.

Ethan Prall:

and I think just to, you know, kind of dovetail with a lot of what Mary has identified. I mean, as I understand, we've had a system in place that I. Allows for, funding scientific research through American universities, which have been engines of growth and innovation and all kinds of, everything from the internet to, vaccines. And we've had, that system in place for 60 or 70 years, you know, and that system has, made, uh, many breakthroughs that have, you know, in influenced and impacted all of our lives. you know, because this funding is, some of it's for cancer research, you know, or Alzheimer's. So I think that, that's important.

Ethan Prall:

And in terms of on the ground, I mean we're seeing, I think the numbers. Are estimated and they're kind of changing day by day, potentially. Um, but we're seeing lots and lots of cancellations and terminations, 1700 plus, uh, NSF grants and over 2000 NIH grants. Uh, that's billions. Many billions of dollars. I've seen estimates a size about $10 billion for NIH in cuts. And these are existing grants. You know, these are grants that have already been, uh, distributed and some of the funds haven't been distributed yet because many of the grants are multi-year that you know that these projects take lots of time to. Develop, but, um, they're existing grants and people rely on these grants, and we rely on these grants and the public relies on them because they provide, you know, really important scientific research. So on the ground, we're seeing people who have relied on these grants and, uh, they're not able to rely on them anymore. Um, and that's, just having kind of really significant impacts on people's, um, livelihoods, mental health, if this had been done in a different way or, or, you know, if changes been made as they have been in previous administrations in a more, incremental way, people would have, I think, a much easier, uh, a much easier opportunity to kind of adjust and to me, to my my mind, that's one of the most significant initial effects of what's, what's been happening on the ground.

Mary Feeney:

Yeah. And I, I think to really add to what Ethan's saying, a lot of the framing of the conversation about cuts at the NIH and the NSF has been about how this affects universities. and obviously it does, but I think, you know, one of the problems with the scientific enterprise in the US is we have the publicly funded scientific enterprise is we haven't done a great job of explaining to people how much this matters for the day-to-day life of Americans. So yes, this, these monies and these grants. Often come down to universities, but private businesses and nonprofits and all sorts of other types of institutions apply to the NIH and the NSF for grant funding. So universities get a big chunk of that money because that's the job they do, right? They do basic science and they do research. And so we invest a lot in university based research, but NIH, NSF, nasa, basically every federal agency has some amount of funding that they spend on research. The NIH and the NSF are research funding agencies, but the DOD, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, they all have some research funding component to them, and they invest in private businesses, nonprofits, and universities.

Mary Feeney:

The biggest cuts at the NSF have been to the EDU Directorate, which funds STEM education, and that's not just funding the people developing science curriculum at the university. That's like robotics clubs at local high schools. It's kid that codes programs at the local library. It's science summer camps that kids all over America go to, and maybe that grant goes through the University of Wisconsin or the University of Minnesota, but it's creating a public service that little kids all over that state are going to and engaging in. And so I think it's really important that people understand that these dollars don't just trickle to the public through, you know. Patents and medicine development. It also comes to the public through all sorts of educational services that are provided at at local schools that are provided at libraries Many of these grants are in partnership with local governments, so if you're doing an emergency response study that's funded by the NSF, it's probably in partnership with your county emergency. Agency or your state emergency agency if you are doing research on climate science at the NSF, it might be in partnership with a local water facility group. It might be in partnership with nonprofits that study bird counts or trees or shade development and hot urban places like Phoenix. A

Mary Feeney:

nd so there are a lot of people across the country whose work and the distribution of public goods is being affected by these cuts. It's, it's not just universities. But I think scientists have not done a great job of explaining to the general public how much science and science funding is, is driving our economy, both through education outcomes and product development and all sorts of sort of different ways. The telescopes in our communities that collect data, the weather collection data, the farmers are using scientific data that comes from our universities.

Ethan Prall:

And, And just, you know, to give one more example, I mean, if, if somebody in Maryland or Virginia works. At a big, you know, or a small NGO that of on other nonprofit, some type of nonprofit, right? That, that works with universities or works with researchers in general at, at institutions, and they get some of their funding, from those, those institutions. Or they're working on projects that are funded. by the federal government with those institutions. Some of those people have already lost their jobs as well. And, uh, so, you know, there, there are a lot of impacts, uh, that seems to me have not really been fully discussed yet, uh, in the media, but they're significant.

Mary Feeney:

I think one of the great resources, if you're thinking locally about like, how do I talk about the value of. NSF funding or NIH funding in my state or my city. Both those agencies have like documents and websites where you can go look at how much funding comes to my state and what that generates. So for example, NIH funding in Arizona in previous years was around 357 million, which seems like an enormous amount of money, but it is predicted to create 1 billion in economic activity. Right. That money supports over 5,000 jobs. That money is in partnership with universities and hospitals and clinics all over the state and, and it's not just the scientists being funded, right? they also have janitorial staff and they have administrative staff. And so people in small towns in America work at facilities. Where scientists are doing federally funded research, so lots of people are gonna lose their jobs doing organizational work that supports the scientific enterprise. these cuts are gonna have enormous economic impacts across the country, across income groups, across all sorts of different career categories, not just scientists, which is why it's so important, I think, to be mobilizing the public and helping people to really understand. The return on investment, we get on these, on these dollars that are spent at the federal level.

Ethan Prall:

So I think, yeah, there's this focus in the news on these elite institutions, Harvard or Columbia. But um, the reality is that this isn't like about Harvard and Columbia, This is about universities and colleges and community colleges and all kinds of institutions all over the country that many people go to it. And we've seen that already. We've seen it in red states too. We've seen the University of Alabama and the US Senators from Alabama saying, look, we don't want massive cuts to University of Alabama's federal research dollars and budget because you know that's gonna affect, thousands of jobs in Alabama, those, those universities are huge employers in our state. And so we're, you know, we're concerned about that and a lot of people will be concerned about those kinds of cuts in states all over the country, whether you're from Texas, Alabama, or New York. We don't wanna lose that kind of, system. Uh, that provides all of these benefits in the present, in the future, uh, for people who are, working people, for people who are, you know, academics, for people who have all kinds of level of education and have all kinds of, ways that they're, impacted and invested in these different institutions. All those people are gonna be impacted and, who you voted for really doesn't make that much of a difference if you're impacted.

Vineeta Singh:

Right. And Ethan, could you maybe speak to the legality of, uh, the ways in which these cuts have been administered?

Ethan Prall:

the, these, these cuts, you know, have already been done in a way that I think a lot of legal scholars and lawyers and others have said looks pretty, strange. we've just kind of cut across the board because it seems there are certain very. Specific political agendas that are, um, animating the cuts, uh, like resistance to DEI and science and support for that in science. Resistance to equity in general, equality in general, resistance to climate change research, uh, environmental research, uh, misinformation, disinformation research that might, you know, fit a certain type of agenda. And so, a lot of those cuts, they look not tailored. in terms of what the agencies are supposed to be doing.

Ethan Prall:

The agencies have mandates under federal law, for example, the NSF has a mandate to include, uh, underrepresented people in science and in scientific research through the Broader Impacts criteria. So. I think that there are a lot of legal requirements that these agencies, you know, have to operate under. That's why we have, laws that, that govern federal agencies because we don't want federal agencies to just be creating their own laws. We want them to be following the law. And that means in this case, for example, uh, support for underrepresented minorities in science that's mandated by the 2010 America, uh, competes re reauthorization act. agencies have to justify their approach under federal law, and they have to do it in a way that's reasonable and not arbitrary, uh, and not capricious.

Ethan Prall:

And so we're already seeing litigation about this. we're seeing a lot of litigation against NIH's decisions to terminate grants. Um, and that litigation is based on these ideas about agencies have to do things in a way that's reasonable. They have to do things in a way that, you know. Everyone, the public included, can understand why they're doing what they're doing. And then it's not just politically motivated that they're following existing law.

Ethan Prall:

So you know those that litigation against NIH, there are a couple of cases I. That have already kind of, you know, judges there have indicated that yeah, they're not super comfortable, I would say with some of the, methods that these federal agencies have been using. the language coming from the judges in the NIH cases is that. You know, federal laws are pretty clear, um, that the agencies have to do a better job of explaining themselves and that they have to follow laws that require them to, for example, expand access, expand the scientific enterprise, provide opportunities to people, support people who may not have traditionally been supported in scientific research. There's now litigation against NSF on the, essentially very similar grounds about how federal agencies have to follow established guidelines and procedures. They have to act in a way that's reasonable and not capricious. So I think that as a result, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna see probably. Litigation, um, be a very important tool, uh, to, push back against some of these claims that the agencies and the administration are making over the, over the coming months. and that's, that's because, you know, we're, we're a nation of of laws and not. Of men.

Mary Feeney:

Yeah. I, you know, I think to follow up on Ethan's sort of closing there, right? The scientific enterprise we have in the US right now is, it was designed intentionally, right? So there's this reference to Vannevar Bush who wrote a thing, a report called The Endless Frontier in 1945, which basically argued that the US government could invest in. R and d through scientific institutions and enterprises to sort of become this sort of world leader, world class place for science and research. Right. And obviously this came a little bit off of the sort of huge benefit the United States had from the brain drain coming from Europe after the wars.

Mary Feeney:

And so as sort of World War II was wrapping up and we saw how the US had benefited from scientist. Europe and then later scientists flee in Russia during the Cold War, right? We have greatly benefited from scientists leaving other regimes to come to the US and so we set up a system with the NSF about 50 years ago that was like, we are going to intentionally invest in basic science. As a way of investing in the economy, national security and, and public value. And so all the agencies invest in research development, but most of the other agencies are investing in sort of an application based on what they do. Like the defense department is investing in research to help advance military technologies or military innovation. And NASA is doing space exploration, but the NSF would invest broadly across a base of all the sciences, right? All the STEM fields. But, and because it's a federal agency with a federal mission, it has to sort of achieve benefits for everyone across society. And it does that through a variety of programs.

Mary Feeney:

So like when we talk about broadening participation at the NSF, that means programs that are expanding science into rural areas, it's programs expanding science into jurisdictions, whether that's states or protectorates or territories of the US where science is not as well developed. That means building a particle accelerator in the middle of nowhere, South Dakota so people there can benefit from science investment. And that comes from you know, a congressional representative in South Dakota lobbying really hard to get that.

Mary Feeney:

And when we talk about the Trump administration attacking universities or picking on Columbia or Harvard, we get distracted by these sort of ideological fights with the. You know, fancy Ivy League in the room, and we're not recognizing that every state benefits from NSF investments universities across the country are bringing home scientific dollars that create a big return on investment for their local community and for their state and for the populations that they serve. And so One of the results of investing in science with federal dollars is that we have created. There's a sort of world class higher education system. People across the world have reformed their universities to look more like the American system because our system has been so successful at attracting talent from around the world. Folks in the US need to sort of really recognize that there are problems in our peer review system. There are problems in our science system. There's problems in every sort of large system, but we have had, for the last 50 years, uh, a world class system that is the envy of places.

Vineeta Singh:

Could you say a little bit more about what those problems are and maybe what, uh, is already being done to try to address those problems?

Mary Feeney:

So in the time I was at the NSF, there were a lot of conversations happening about how to improve the peer review system. So we currently do sort of a bunch of scientists review your proposal, and then we get together on panels and we talk about which research is the most competitive or the most innovative. And then funding decisions are made. there's not enough money for all the great research, and so you have to make decisions about what gets funded and what doesn't. And there's a lot of sort of social science research that talks about. The way in which we have bias in our decision making, the way we maybe give funding to the organizations that already have the funding because then they write the best proposals. And so you end up with, it's the Matthew Effect, right? The one who gets continues to get and the others get left behind.

Mary Feeney:

And so there's all sorts of ways that we can kind of query our system and improve it And I. In my experience and in my view, the people who work in our federal scientific enterprise are deeply committed to funding the best science that they can and to making their decisions in the most objective, unbiased, non-political way that they can. And the agencies have a lot of experts who work in these science areas, and they have a lot of. Sort of self-reflective activities that they engage in to ensure that we are doing the best science that we can and we are spending the limited funds we have in the most effective ways that we can to have the, like biggest bang for our taxpayer dollars. Um, and we saw a lot of the shift happening. Under the previous administration, for example, with the Nelson Memorandum that said, any science that is funded by federal dollars and public dollars needs to produce publicly available outputs. Right? Your publications and your findings and your data need to be freely available to the public. They shouldn't be behind a paywall and sold.

Mary Feeney:

And to me, that's a, that's evidence of this constant assessment of what, what are we doing and how can we do it better? Yes, we can always do better. What doesn't make us better is coming in and making sweeping reforms based on a political ideology or based on an assertion that like, this is wasteful and leftist spending, or this is inefficient and unaccountable. The federal agencies are very efficient. They have continued to operate at higher and higher levels of capacity without expanding their workforce. Uh, the federal government also has a lot of accountability mechanisms. It is not a corrupt, wasteful system, and so the whole narrative of it being wasteful is incorrect, and that was used to destroy some things that I think are pretty clearly evidenced as super effective and world class. And the American people need to understand that, and they need to stand up and fight. To take back what we have, which is a, a pretty good, pretty strong, highly functioning federal scientific investment system.

Vineeta Singh:

you've actually led us to a pretty natural segue to my next question, uh, which is about what people should be doing right now. You've mentioned a few ways in which folks are already responding. Are there particular cases that you wanna draw our attention to? And um, are there other things that we can and should be doing to respond right now?

Ethan Prall:

Yeah, absolutely. I think there are definitely some, some cases going on now. There's a litigation happening over the NIH grant terminations and the indirect cuts that have happened where, budgets of, of institutions like universities have been, you know, limited for indirect costs. Which are just costs that support, uh, like facilities for example, and how, keep maintenance. Um, but yeah, there, there's litigation going on around NIH, uh, cuts in the federal district in Massachusetts. Um.

Ethan Prall:

There's now a litigation that's just started, about two weeks ago in the Southern District of New York, uh, which is NSF litigation. So about, I think it's 16 states as of now, have brought suit against, uh, NSF. For, its federal funding terminations and, cuts to indirect cost coverage as well. and so those cases are, you know, the NSF case is just getting started. uh, in the A NIH case. There's already some pretrial stuff happening. So, the judge in the Massachusetts case, NIH case in Massachusetts, which was brought by a, a bunch of different institutions, has, uh, already denied, partially denied the motion to dismiss that the government brought in that case. Um, so the judge there has said, look, some of these claims. they're plausible. It's plausible that, the agency has been way too vague in what it's done here, and the agency has done things that are unreasonable and arbitrary.

Ethan Prall:

Um, those things seem plausible, so that's a good sign in a lot of ways. I think, it doesn't, doesn't mean that case will end up one way or another, of course, but it is a good sign. I think a lot of people have, you know, looked at these cases and, can take a little bit of hope from them. Of course, when you're talking about specifics for individuals, whether they're. Yeah, well, especially for people who I guess are directly impacted. Of course, you know, there are agency appeals processes that people can use. There are internal appeals and the AAUP, the, the published guide on the website, about federal terminations has some, an overview of how kind of those appeals processes can work.

Ethan Prall:

Um, you can work with the agency potentially, although the agencies, you know, have said that they're. Letters, their termination letters are not appealable. Uh, which itself kind of seems to go pretty clearly against what Fed federal regulations require, which is that they make their termination decisions appealable. So, sticking, staying the course and, you know, trying to use different pathways and avenues to get into discussion with the agencies to appeal their decisions. And if necessary to go to federal court is, is I. A pathway, going forward that, that people can use.

Ethan Prall:

Um, and then, you know, I'm sure we'll see, continue to see additional litigation, the future over these issues. So, you know, what do we do? I think a lot of the things that we've discussed, you know, calling and writing your state and house reps and going, showing up their offices and attending protests and. Collaborating with your professional associations and getting involved, with appeals to these agencies within the 30 day deadline they set and following along and maybe talking to your universities and your state ag about joining litigation if they haven't joined it already. It's not like every state in the union is now. Join these lawsuits and some of those suits may be ca to, you know, impact and, and have, re have relief for the states that are, that are in those suits.

Ethan Prall:

And maybe the relief won't go to the states that are not in those suits. So there are a whole host of things that people, I think should be thinking about and just processing and, reflecting on with their colleagues. Um. In terms of the kinds of tools that are available. It seems, you know, strikes me that like one thing that might change, for example. In, uh, federal agencies and the way funding works is that maybe some grants at least, uh, are, are either granted to, uh, PIs alongside the university or they're granted directly to PIs. I think there are certain kinds of changes that probably could be made in order to. Reflect some of the concern that we've started to see, um, for, uh, people who are directly impacted. individuals who are directly impacted by these cuts, not just the institutions that employ them. So, um, but a lot of that I think is just TBD. We don't, we just don't know enough yet. I think probably to make those kinds of assessments right now,

Mary Feeney:

I do think we can. Assume there will be a real lost in trust in government among scientists, and I think there will probably also be a. A loss of trust in the general public, in the scientific enterprise. And I think we should not underestimate how important public trust is when it comes to thinking about government and universities and these large institutions that produce public value for our society. I. Um, citizen trust is, is a real important component of sort of participation and buy-in and take up of, you know, new tools and innovation or medications or whatever, right?

Mary Feeney:

And so I think that the sort of chaos that's created through this system, the questioning, the sort of constant rhetoric you're hearing about, that science funding was inefficient or bad, or corrupt or wasteful. Even when none of that is really true, it does affect people's mindset and people's thinking, and that can sort of reverberate over time into all sorts of ways we don't. Sort of completely understand, right? So the sort of the way we think about scientific investments is, is an important part. You know, do we support our scientists? Do we trust the science? Do we trust the government? Do we believe that our federal dollars are being used to create value for us, is an important part of sort of a, a good governance in a functioning nation state.

Mary Feeney:

I think Brexit shows a little bit of evidence of what we might expect to see in the United States, so. Uh, some of the research I was funding while at the NSF was what we call meta science, which is sort of looking at trends across science, uh, how collaboration works, or how teams work, or how investment works over time in the scientific sort of enterprise. And there are some recent studies that are showing. When the UK left the eu, it had real effects on scientists, collaboration patterns, who they worked with. It also cut off their funding access to European research funds, and so scholars working in England had to sort of shift who they worked with and where they got their funding. So some of their projects were killed, and then many of them look to other places for support. Including China. So you see an increase in collaboration patterns with non-European scholars and British scholars.

Mary Feeney:

That can be great, right? Maybe what this has done is enabled. Folks working at universities in the UK to collaborate more with the global South and it'll improve outcomes for those people and the production of research. And that's fantastic, but it also sort of shifts the way you can think about national security. So if American scientists start getting funding outside the US that has long-term political implications for the United States. It has long-term implications for our economy and for our national security. We live in a country where. There is a general sort of anti-government culture, right?

Mary Feeney:

And there's a strong, in some states, there's a real strong view that the federal government is not doing enough for us, and much of that is because the federal government does a lot and doesn't take credit for it. It runs tons of programs and spends a lot of money and runs it through states, so that states can take credit for that program or it runs it through program deliverers. You think your university is doing this great research or running this great clinic in your neighborhood, and you don't realize that the federal government is funding that, so the credit is going to the university and not the feds.

Mary Feeney:

And so because of the way our system works, it's really easy for people to not know that something is funded by the federal government, whether it's their highway or their postal delivery services or the clean water that that comes through their taps. So I think we all have an obligation to like get out there and pound the pavement a little. And that means, you know, that starts with talking to friends and family and neighborhood. Folks and people that you see about what your work is and what it means for the community and what it means to have these federal dollars stripped and how this is gonna affect their livelihoods.

Mary Feeney:

If you work at a university, you should be talking to your students about this stuff, and it doesn't have to be a politics conversation. It's a conversation about how the systems work and what they mean for us, and what it means to cut funding that is driving some of these outcomes for us. It seems like a useless activity, but you cannot underestimate the power of lots of phone calls to a politician's office, and so everyone needs to be calling their representatives and it's not just their house and Senate reps. At federal level, but it's also your governor. It's your local government representatives, it's your mayor, because all of them are also gonna be affected by these cuts. Uh, going to protests, being really active and following the news and understanding what's going on through your professional association. Whether that's the American Physics Society or Triple A S or the Chemical Society, really sort of getting people organized and talking a lot about what is happening. There's a real need for science education in America, and I think all of us should take some responsibility for the lack of information people have about how STEM works, how we invest in stem, and how we produce really great outcomes for people across the country.

Mary Feeney:

And so I would encourage listeners to really think about how they can have local immediate impact while we wait for these sort of larger systems to, to, to move forward. And, you know, vote, there's a lot of midterm elections coming up and people don't go to midterm elections. And we really need to, and I think, run for a position, join a local board, whether it's a city council or a library board or a school board, but we all need to take some responsibility for the attacks that are happening on, on our administrative state and sort of get active and get out there.

Vineeta Singh:

And that sounds like the perfect call to action to end on. So I'll wrap things up for Mary Feeney, Ethan Praw, and myself, Vineeta Singh from the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom. Okay. In the show notes for this episode, you'll find a couple of recent pieces by our guests as well as resources that help you identify where federal funding shows up in your communities. This has been such an important takeaway for me. Um, I am imagining an art project to label everything that's brought to you by federal funding and your tax dollars. Uh, not a call for vandalism. This is just a reflection on what I'm learning about the public impact of research funding. And I'm gonna keep thinking about the future of the scientific enterprise. And when I do, I'll be thinking about the creativity and the imagination that go into it and how academic freedom is a necessary, if not sufficient condition to ensure that we have a future of science in the United States. Thank you for listening and learning with us. This has been a A UP Presents Academic Freedom on the line.