Scientists in Australia and Europe recently reported that they received a request from American universities with which they collaborate to fill out a 36-question questionnaire designed to examine whether their research deals with sensitive topics that were considered sensitive by the second Trump administration.
Two projects by the University of Brussels (VUB) in collaboration with American entities were recently canceled due to "changing policy priorities."
In addition, Dutch researchers funded by US federal funds received a 36-question questionnaire, aimed at ensuring that the studies comply with the new US administration's policies and do not deal with "problematic" issues such as climate change or social diversity. This is reported by the European website Science|Business.
"We support academic freedom and want to continue collaborating with our American colleagues," said a senior scientist from the Netherlands, "but it is becoming increasingly difficult."
Australia also reported receiving the questionnaire, and the Australian Academy of Science fears serious harm to scientific cooperation between the countries.
"The US is Australia's most important research partner, providing funding of around A$386 million per year for collaborative projects, an amount that constitutes around 43% of the Australian Research Council (ARC) budget. Around a quarter of Australian research in biomedicine and 40% of research in the physical sciences is carried out in collaboration with US researchers."
Professor Chenupati Jagadish, president of the Australian Academy of Science, this week called on the Albanese government to protect Australian research from the severe damage caused by the Trump administration. He said that undermining cooperation could weaken Australian capabilities in strategic areas such as security, health, artificial intelligence and quantum technologies.
Meteorological research is among the main victims. Dr. Martin Singh of Monash University, president of the Meteorological and Oceanographic Society of Australia, noted that the NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), which partners with Australia on many research projects, has suffered severe cuts. He said, "Without cooperation with the US, Australia could lose a vital warning system for severe cyclones, such as Cyclone Alfred, which recently hit the east coast."
The health sector has also been directly affected. Professor Ian Hickey of the University of Sydney has warned that the future of medical research in Australia is "intimately tied" to the US. He warns that young researchers have lost jobs and research grants, and that the future generation of scientists is at risk. "Ideology is trumping science," Hickey said.
Emergency meeting of European science ministers
The European Union's science ministers are calling on the European Commission to prepare to absorb American researchers who are threatened by the strict restrictions imposed by the Donald Trump administration on science in the United States, and to offer them concrete options for continuing their work in Europe.
In a letter sent yesterday to Research Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva, signed by 12 European governments (France, Czech Republic, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Spain, Slovenia, Germany and Greece), the ministers call on the European Union to show solidarity and provide a response to "talented scientists from abroad who are suffering from interference in their research and cruel and unjustified budget cuts."
“The current international context reminds us that scientific freedom can be at risk anywhere and at any time,” they wrote. Although the US government is not specifically mentioned in the letter, the implication is clear.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
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Those who introduce agendas in the guise of science are those who nullify the achievements of science and seek to create an alternative, false science. There is no political science, there is no right-wing or left-wing climate science, there is climate science, period. The fact that the right side is trying to silence scientists just because it prevents a few tycoons from making more money at the expense of the health of the rest of the world, does not mean that climate science is wrong science.
Excellent. Only in this way will we keep science objective and free from agendas that are tried to be introduced into it under the guise of science.
The climate issue has become political in the hands of deniers, basically it is a scientific issue that is in consensus and should not be subject to political influence. Opposition is not political just because the aggressor is political. In fact, the arguments that this is a cyclical event over which man has no control are unacceptable to any climate scientist, carbon dioxide levels are the highest in millions of years, we have postponed the next ice age by half a million years, each year is warmer than the last, the poles are melting. What else needs to happen for people to believe scientists and not charlatans?
Gender studies and DEI are not science. Regarding climate science, it is indeed excessive to prevent funding, and in my opinion it has only been reduced, but unfortunately this issue has become proactively political. There is a lot of money and interests on both sides of the fence involved in the process of drawing pseudo-scientific conclusions. There is no doubt that the Earth is warming, just as there is no doubt that this happens cyclically when coming out of an ice age. The real question is how much humans contribute to warming, and this is very difficult to answer scientifically and objectively. And in this context, most scientists in the field have a predefined agenda (and funding).
You don't understand. The elite universities of the US hosted postdoctoral fellows from all over the world. Knowledge exchange is a crucial part of science, without it we would still be in the trees.
If they can't handle and run a country themselves, they won't run it.
The climate crisis, pandemics, and international crime know no geographical boundaries and affect everyone, including Americans who may be caught off guard.
You ate it too. You will have a polluted world, hot as Venus, and full of preventable epidemics.
It's very good to fund false and useless studies when there are real problems in the world that are not funded enough or at all and are hidden from the public for the wrong reasons, such as studies on racial differences and the very low IQ of sub-Saharan Africans and their crime levels and primitive culture and the mental illnesses of LGBT people and the insane encouragement of their madness by Western governments instead of real treatment of diseases.
One of the more justified complaints I've heard against woke culture is that they refuse to conduct research that will yield results that don't fit their ideology.
Someone argued that the anti-woke approach simply uses the same tactics in the other direction.
If the claim in this article is true – this is a complete verification of that claim.
You can't stop scientific research just because you don't like the results. The truth is the truth, and turning a blind eye to it won't make it go away.
sad.
It amazes me that the US funds almost everything on Earth. Diseases, wars, research, and more...
"Researchers in Australia have lost research grants."
What's up? That the Australian government will fund it out of its own pocket.
Not a follower of Trump and his friends, but all those who supported "Wok" and "mopped up" anyone who did not support their position, are receiving their punishment today.
Once the balance is upset for either side, there will be chaos.
A second-rate scientist. Science is not a program. As you request, we don't do a poll. The scientific consensus summarizes thousands of studies that all show the same thing - that the Earth is warming because of humans. Not allowing research won't cool the Earth even a hundred percent. You can't forcibly change a scientific consensus.
The tyranny of the "new" world of yesterday reveals to its horror that its progressive thought police have been thwarted. Indeed, a severe shock among the extreme left circles.
Great. It's time to stop with this false invention masquerading as science.
What's happening is serious, but who started it?
The wind that has been blowing until today has been exactly the opposite, denouncing those who disagreed.
This is bad and this is bad. In the future, they will learn to respect others too. This time, you ate it.