A crowd of scientists from Louisiana met the State Capitol on Friday to protest against the funding for the Trump administration.
The gathering of more than 100 teachers, students and other researchers was part of a national demonstration of “science”, scientists from across the country out of their laboratories to defend their profession.
During his first weeks in power, President Donald Trump and his administration made drastic movements to upset how science is funded. The White House has interrupted funding for many scientific projects that are linked to diversity, equity and inclusion and reduction of administrative cost reduction resources linked to research funded by the National Institutes of Health.
“(The administration is) throwing the regular conducting of science in chaos, and it is therefore extraordinarily harmful,” said Ravi Rau, professor of LSU physics over 50, in an interview.
The group, some of which are dressed in long white laboratory blouses, has held slogans such as “Science Makes America Great”, “the financing of science finances the future” and “finance American science gives China victory”. They also sang songs like “no science, no future”.
Their protest came with a warning: any loss of funding for American research would have catastrophic impacts for the global position of the United States and for local economies across the country.
Although federal funding reductions in the Trump administration are largely on the midst of current disputes, universities are preparing for the possibility of a major reduction in dollars in government research. LSU could lose $ 12 million If the administration proposed the Cup to Indirect costs for the subsidies of the National Institutes of Health are allowed to enter into force and would lose tens of millions of people if other agencies are following the plunge.
Any major loss of federal research funding would ultimately have an impact on the economy, because each dollar spent by research universities has a training effect. A report found Each dollar spent on research funded by NIH has an economic impact of $ 2.46.
The universities of Louisiana have active NIH subsidies worth around 300 million dollars, creating an economic impact for the state of more than half a billion dollars. Hundreds of millions of additional dollars have gone to hospitals and other state organizations.
The loss of federal subsidies is also risking the pipeline that educates graduate students to take jobs in the academic world and in private industry. Many graduate students, both those looking for master’s degrees and doctoral students, have their wages and tuition fees covered by federal subsidies, as well as the research they carry out in pursuit of their diploma.
“By threatening the sources of research funding, we harm our own economy and restrict our own workforce,” said Sam Bentley, a geology professor in LSU. “Most people can agree, whatever the political turn, that judicious economic growth and having a highly formed and successful workforce is really important.”
Piper Hutchinson
/ /
Louisiana illuminator
Brandon Shuck, professor of geophysics at LSU, warned that the loss of development of the workforce could have an impact on the petroleum and gas industry in Louisiana, one of the industries inherited from the State.
Offshore drilling involves complex technology, said Shuck, and requires highly trained scientists like those who have studied in its department to prevent disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon explosion which killed 11 platform workers.
The 2010 accident off the coast of Louisiana was the largest marine tide in world history, releasing around 134 million raw gallons in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We have learned a lot scientifically about the reason why it happened and how we could prevent it,” said Shuck. “So we need science to do these things. And I think that if we do not have a stable pipeline of scientists in Louisiana, the state will suffer from it. »»
The students of the rally expressed their fears that their future evaporates in the heat that Trump puts in universities.
Cullen Hodges, a doctorate of biological sciences. The student said that hiring freezes that universities have implemented in the midst of uncertainty in federal funding made him fear the way he warns his 7 -year -old daughter.
Piper Hutchinson
/ /
Louisiana illuminator
“I will face so many people for the few remaining jobs in a country that has demonstrated a total lack of respect or respect for the dignity of scientists,” said Hodges.
“It seems that I swim upstream against the current, and they just damned the river,” he added.
Although criticisms have argued that federal funding should not go to scientific research that has no direct applications, scientists gathered on the stages have all agreed that there is no research applied without fundamental science.
Investing in this research is now necessary for the applied science of the future, said Jonathan Snow, professor of geology in LSU, in an interview with the rally. Although the value of fundamental scientific research may not be obvious to the public, scientists agree that this research is necessary for saving discoveries and other scientific breakthroughs.
“Basic science has mainly won the Second World War,” said Snow. “Basic science has led innovation in all kinds of war -making technologies, from radar to atomic bomb.”
“None of them was commercial products before the war … They were all developed from the academic scientific enterprise,” he added.
Beyond the economic impact, the demonstrators have raised concerns about the impact of attacks on the university world of the fabric of American society.
Rau, the professor of physics, said that universities have played a key role through history in the preservation of the knowledge necessary for the existence of Western civilization.
Without research and preservation and dissemination of knowledge, society cannot prosper and may have trouble surviving, said Rau.
“They certainly risk our company,” he said about the Trump administration. “They certainly risk our country and its stature within society.”