Where to even begin?

If this column had begun two years ago, it would likely have grown into a week-by-week exegesis of the Trump administration’s assault on the institutions and processes of US science. As it is, here in 2026 it’s hard to know where to start.

With apologies to readers for being obliged to pick this up in media res, an indicative case study of how American politics has asserted its will-to-power over the research system can be seen in the latest social science funding developments.

As reported by Science last week, fresh figures for the 2026 fiscal year show just how deep the devastation has run at the National Science Foundation’s social, behavioural and economic science directorate (SBE). It spent $95m in 2026 – way down on its usual allocations – and awarded only 91 new grants, in stark contrast to its usual annual average of more like 800.

The magazine has spotted that in excess of 30 subject areas, including archaeology, anthropology, and sociology, there was not a single award made.

So far, so existential – an ominous dismantling of research in an area that the Trump administration disapproves of; it had previously sought for SBE to be eliminated entirely. But the other aspect which stands out is just how opaque it’s all been. For all the bombast about reshaping science – a “new golden age” – when it comes to funding cuts the strategies employed have often ended up much more secretive, a go-slow behind closed doors rather than anything anyone seems to be particularly proud of.

Science also points out that, to achieve this, both directorate leadership and staff have seen their decision-making power fizzle out – in a way never put into writing – with choices about which projects moved forward apparently taken out of their hands.

For us in the UK, the obvious question is whether something comparable could happen here under a future government – and it would be foolish to answer in the negative. The fact that no political upheaval is imminent here tends to mean that this remains a nagging concern rather full-blown panic.

The Conservatives currently appear keen to cut £2bn from UKRI’s budget to invest instead in defence R&D (or is it to save Jodrell Bank?) for reasons which are about ministerial judgements on what counts as “nonsense” in research. Reform will presumably propose something similar when they get their act together. But there’s talk, and then there’s actually following through – we may end up viewing the Tories’ enshrining into law of the Haldane principle as one of the great achievements of mid-2010s policymaking.

The more complicated question is to what extent the Trump administration’s bulldozing of the line between politics and research can and does already impact the UK, through less obvious processes of diffusion.

For instance, whether certain approaches to reforming the R&I system end up feeling somewhat MAGA-coded, to coin a phrase. If forced to make a prediction, we might wonder whether the US government’s full-throated endorsement of AI for science – sorry, “superintelligence”, as the country is now mandated to refer to it – is going to cause problems for those who would like to encourage it elsewhere.

This, along with metascience, was a central part of last weekend’s “Kyoto vision” from the White House, which was endorsed by 16 other countries including the UK – and Germany. Subsequently Germany’s Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space felt moved to clarify that the “joint declaration” (as the Americans described it) was in fact not a “binding declaration” but rather a basis for discussion:

“Even though these resolutions generally appear worthy of support, they will be questioned and examined more closely [...] For Germany, the independence of science and the freedom of research remain non-negotiable principles.”

This is the issue in a nutshell. There are plenty of approaches that governments elsewhere might want to try out in reforming their country’s approach to science and innovation. But if they get too strongly associated with an administration which is at war with (many) elements of its own research system, it becomes much harder to move them forward in a way that takes the community with you. 

Spotted a politician meddling in the research system? Or a blurry line between academia and government? Email the man himself: haldane [at] researchagenda [dot] news