Tag: Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Grants under threat at the US National Institutes of Health

Volume 406, Issue 10522
20 December 2025
WORLD REPORT  Changes to how research grants are assessed and awarded are undermining the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research. Washington Correspondent Susan Jaffe reports. 
So far this year, the Trump administration has fired more than 1000 scientists and grant administrators at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and cut thousands of its research grants, including clinical trials with 74 000 patients. But long-time grant recipients and former institute directors worry that changes in how grants are awarded—and who receives them—threaten the pathways for new discoveries and the many academic research centres that train future scientists. [Continued here.]
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Scientists and physicians run for office in the USA

 Volume 391, Number 10131   

 28 April 2018

 

WORLD REPORT   Frustrated by what they say is the US Government’s disregard for science, more scientists and physicians are entering politics.  Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.

Nuclear engineer Elaine Luria running for Congress in southeast Virginia (photo/elaineforcongress.com)

Scientists, physicians, engineers, and their supporters surprised many people—and maybe themselves—when they assembled in cities across the USA a year ago demanding an end to President Donald Trump’s Administration’s so-called war on science, which has attacked climate change, environmental protection laws, and funds for biomedical research, among other targets.

But, for some critics, protests are not enough. Instead of appealing to elected officials, now they want to take their place.

“…More and more scientists realise that they have… an obligation to see that the idea of science is defended, that evidence is respected, and that the conditions for science to thrive are respected”, said Rush Holt, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  [Continued here.]  …