TRGETING SCIENCETrump’s Science Cuts Threaten Public Research Data
President Donald Trump’s cuts to scientific research create anxieties about the accessibility of research data. Scientists worldwide fear websites and data sets hosted in the United States will be deleted or decommissioned.
US President Donald Trump’s cuts to scientific research create anxieties about the accessibility of research data. Scientists worldwide fear websites and data sets hosted in the United States will be deleted or decommissioned. While private initiatives in and outside of the US have emerged to transfer and archive data elsewhere, a more concerted approach is needed to safeguard globally relevant data holdings, especially when our strategic policy is meant to be data-driven.
The Trump administration has been repurposing US scientific research to help maintain the US’s economic, military and technological advantage. Trump’s team is relentlessly focusing on critical and emerging technologies to boost US defense, including AI, quantum information science, biotech, semiconductors and nuclear technology.
The administration has also started divesting from research it deems irrelevant, distractive or counterproductive, such as climate science and clean energy, diversity and gender equity, health and disease control, and environmental policy. Federally funded research groups, functions and programs are being closed. Continued and unhindered access to research and measurement data is at risk.
This new approach may be defensible domestically, although the dismissal of the national archivist and NASA’s closing of the Office of the Chief Scientist and Office of Science, Policy and Strategy are hugely concerning. Much of the world’s most important research, while conducted through US institutions and with data hosted on US soil, involves substantial contributions from global partners. It is shared international knowledge.
Many affected research outputs are important to the US’s most active and trusted science and technology partners, including Australia. These radical divestments risk ceding stewardship of significant research data to competitors. China already sees climate science, weather monitoring and space-based monitoring as an area it can step into.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is now in the administration’s sights. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 report accuses NOAA of creating the ‘climate change alarm industry’. The 2 May budget proposed suspending NOAA’s world-leading centers for research on climate, weather and marine resources. Instead, the agency is expected to manage the licensing for deep seabed exploration.
The agency is retiring some 20 data sources containing live metrics on earthquake, marine, coastal and estuary science. Global climate science relies on NOAA’s data for measurements, trend analyses, weather forecasting and disaster preparedness. The data is also important to national security, due to its use in crisis management and military operations in the Indo-Pacific and in Europe.
