URBANA — A crowd of scientists and their supporters gathered at the Alma Mater in Urbana to rally against President Donald Trump’s funding cuts on research. The March for Science rally took place on Tuesday, in honor of Earth Day.
For the past three months, the Trump administration has taken aim at federal funding for scientific research, making the future of science uncertain for scientists across the country, including at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Joy O’Keefe, a U of I associate professor and wildlife extension specialist, spoke at the event and discussed the importance of federal funding in science. She shared how the Northern long-eared bat is one of many endangered species that have benefited from federal funding.
“Many federal agencies have risen to the call, the bat signal, if you will, working feverishly to learn more about a once-common bat species that [is] disappearing before our eyes,” O’Keefe said.
The U.S. has been considered a global leader in science for more than 80 years, according to O’Keefe: “We can thank federal funding for enabling so many cool discoveries about bats.”
But the work of researchers like O’Keefe is at risk if funding cuts and freezes continue to take place. Rally participants booed when O’Keefe highlighted the loss of jobs and cuts to scientific research funding that have taken place since Trump took office.
“Federal agencies themselves are being slashed with thousands of sudden job cuts [and] no plans in place to maintain the vital services these agencies provide,” O’Keefe said. “These cuts are devastating because federal funding isn’t just vital to bat populations, it’s crucial to student education and training.”
Concerns about brain drain
Many March for Science attendees cited concerns about the pending “brain drain” that could result from the instability and uncertainty in the U.S. regarding scientific research.
Dana Green, a co-organizer of the march and a U of I post-doctoral researcher who works with O’Keefe, has decided to make a life-altering choice: She’ll be quitting her research role to take a new post-doc position in British Columbia, Canada.
Green said she’s devastated by this decision. She has been managing a project led by O’Keefe studying a critically endangered Indian bat, examining how the bats respond to forest management. O’Keefe had inspired her trajectory in academics, Green said, and it had been her dream to work with her.
“I like doing my job well, and I hold myself to a very high standard, and I feel like I am letting Dr. O’Keefe down,” Green said. “I feel like I’m letting my team down. But I still feel that this is the right and best choice for still being able to have a future in wildlife research.”
Green is not alone. The journal Nature surveyed around 1,600 researchers, and more than 1,200 respondents identifying as scientists said they would consider leaving the U.S.; many said they were looking for jobs in Europe or Canada.
Universities around the world are seeing an uptick in applications from U.S. researchers who feel their future careers in science are uncertain under the Trump administration.
“That’s just going to bring our science and technology down, we’re not going to be as productive or as much of a superpower in science as we once were as a result of these actions,” O’Keefe said.
O’Keefe said Green is one of two research employees resigning their positions due to the uncertain environment. The loss of researchers for the project means it will be more challenging to carry it out her work on how bats respond to forest management.
“That is definitely devastating to me,” O’Keefe said. “It’s going to change the nature of the science that I’m doing. I’m either having to step in or we’re having to, you know, try to recruit other people to fill those spots.”
Not only has Green quit her postdoctoral research position, but she said she also turned down another dream job: an assistant professor position with a tenure-track at a U.S. institution where she would’ve studied the eastern red bat’s migration patterns.
“I have always wanted to start my research lab, and it feels like that opportunity in the U.S. was stolen,” Green said.
Getting funding to study how wildlife responds to human activities or disturbances was a struggle even before Trump took office, according to O’Keefe.
The whole situation has caused Green to have a bleak outlook on the future of wildlife research as a whole.
“Now, what was difficult is going to be practically impossible. What little federal funding was available is now practically nonexistent,” she said. “My chances of actually being successful in getting funding would be more than questionable.”
The potential impact on the University of Illinois
The U of I has joined other universities in filing lawsuits against government agencies — including the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Energy — to prevent funding cuts.
The campus is seeking to protect itself from a $67 million annual loss that would result from NIH limiting funding for indirect research costs to 15%. The policy has been permanently barred by a judge, but the NIH said it planned to appeal the case in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The lawsuit against the DOE aims to prevent the agency from enacting a policy similar to the proposed NIH cap.
“This action only slows or stops progress, harms our national security, and threatens our competitiveness with other nations,” Robert Jones, Chancellor at U of I, said in a mass email on April 15. “The learning and discovery that you participate in every day is too important to risk, and we are acting to protect our momentum toward a better world.”
The March for Science — involving dozens of supporters — ended at Lincoln Square Mall, where the group held the People’s Science Fair, showcasing research done by students and researchers from the U of I and the local community.
This event was organized by a newly formed science-advocacy group, Rise Up for Science — with the same organizers who led the Stand Up for Science rally in March.
“We’re fighting for that’s what we’re doing,” Green said. “We’re standing up, and we’re fighting for our future and the future of this country, because science, innovation, and technology are able to push the boundaries.”