Press release | Threats to science and scientific research, withdrawal of US aid to international organizations
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Depuis son investiture le 20 janvier dernier, Donald Trump a pris une série de décisions qui vont impacter très fortement et négativement la recherche scientifique aux États-Unis, ce qui aura des conséquences dans le monde entier, notamment à travers les collaborations internationales qui sont aussi ciblées. Des coupes budgétaires au niveau fédéral ont été annoncées, des licenciements de chercheurs, de fonctionnaires et la suppression de programmes clefs. L’administration de Donald Trump et Elon Musk, son collaborateur chargé de l’Efficacité gouvernementale, qui échappe au contrôle du Sénat car il n’est pas membre du gouvernement fédéral, a décidé de couper drastiquement les fonds d’aide humanitaire de USAID. Cette dernière agence de développement, qui représente 42% de l’aide humanitaire dans le monde, a vu ses fonds soudain gelés, et la désorganisation touche plus d’une centaine de pays, où les diverses ONG sont en très grande difficulté
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The United States is also threatening to leave the United Nations (UN) World Health Organization (WHO) and is brutally cutting funding to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation's medical research agency, while conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine theories are spreading at the highest level of the federal government, fuelling concern. Universal access to healthcare is being called into question, and medical misinformation is spreading through social networks. Funding for universities will also be dramatically reduced, with the authorization of their deductions from their scientists' research contracts with federal agencies now capped at 15%, instead of the previous 60%. The collapse of these tools, essential to university funding, will permanently weaken all public research in the United States.
Donald Trump has decided to censor all research and action related to climate change. The United States has once again pulled out of the Paris Agreement, drafted at COP21, the conference that led to an international climate agreement. Among his first decisions, Donald Trump cut NASA's Earth monitoring program, which diagnosed greenhouse gases as well as pollution affecting people's health, interrupting the continuity of observations, and negatively impacting all associated countries. Any interruption ruins the usefulness of these time and space series, and if other countries have similar programs, complementarity with US satellites is vital and must be supported. Donald Trump has attacked the USDA, the federal agency in charge of agriculture, by prohibiting it from pursuing work on global warming. He also removed from federal websites at least 8,000 web pages mentioning subjects that are now banned, such as climate change, the environment, biodiversity and gender studies. He has also dismantled at federal level the plan for ecological and social reforms to protect the environment and develop clean, renewable energies, and instead announces his reinforced support for the development of the fossil fuel industry.
On the pretext of combating "woke" ideology, and defending traditional values, the Trump administration is attacking DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) policies aimed at encouraging the social advancement of disadvantaged minorities. All positive discrimination is now prohibited: this applies just as much to foreign students in the United States as to women and minorities in businesses, universities and academic institutions.
The Frencg Academy of Sciences is deeply concerned by these budget cuts, the brutal dismissal of the most precarious research staff, thesis students and post-docs. Years of training and research are suddenly lost, work interrupted, and international collaborations sacrificed. Today, scientific research is globalized, and all countries will feel the impact of these decisions. What's more, the prevailing obscurantism and the denial of reality through the unbridled use of disinformation show the extent to which the authority of the scientific word is under threat from political decision-makers, as is the place of reason in public debate. Today's censorship will reduce the freedom of research in the most promising sectors, and deprive individual and collective decision-making processes of the insight provided by scientific research and reports from specialist bodies such as the IPCC. The impact on future generations, biodiversity and the health of the planet will prove catastrophic. The damage caused in such a short space of time will take much longer to repair.
The French Academy of Sciences expresses its solidarity with the scientific world in the United States at this chaotic time. It invites our country's researchers to actively seek ways to maintain the scientific collaborations that are underway. We remain very attentive to developments in the situation, which could later have dramatic consequences for global research and the public's understanding of science. The Académie des Sciences will endeavor to contribute to any measures that will enable our colleagues in the United States to continue the splendid research they have carried out to date, for the good of their country and humanity.
English version: Read the press release