How Trump’s attack on science also affects Dutch researchers
From astronomy to history, Dutch researchers from all corners of science are suffering from the attack on academic freedom in the United States. “American colleagues don't even dare to talk about it for fear of reprisals.”
Together with several colleagues, he wrote an article about the consequences of climate change for the health of construction workers, says Lex Burdorf, professor of ‘determinants of public health’ at Erasmus University Rotterdam. It was supposed to be published in an American scientific journal, but at the last minute it was rejected. The vague reason given was ‘specific circumstances’. Burdorf: “We strongly suspect that this is because Donald Trump has said he no longer wants to see any research into climate change.” Meanwhile, the journal appears to have been shut down.
Trump
Donald Trump has only been president of the United States for a few months, and the consequences for science are visible on all sides. Trump is cutting science funding, torpedoing climate research, banning words such as ‘diversity’ and ‘gender’, and deporting international students and researchers he doesn't like. He is launching a frontal attack on academic freedom.
In Burdorf’s field, the new administration is leading to self-censorship among scientists, he says. “I am involved in research into the differences in health between men and women, but you can’t say that in America anymore. They talk about “targeted medicine” or “personalised medicine”. You see that happening. It’s very bizarre, isn’t it?”
In his emails to colleagues at American universities, he now watches what he says, because you never know where those emails might end up. Hundreds of scientists are losing their jobs, and he doesn’t want to get his remaining colleagues into trouble.
He finds himself turning away from the US. “We are less inclined to invite Americans to participate in new research projects, because that can cause problems,” says Burdorf. “What’s more, I have decided not to go to America for at least the next two years. I don’t think I feel at home in a country where such bizarre things are happening.”
Poll
This is one example of how the new course of the American government is also being felt in the Netherlands. But there is more. Dutch researchers are also losing American research funding or seeing years of collaboration go down the drain. Data is at risk of disappearing or is already inaccessible. Conferences have been postponed or cancelled.
Together with NU.nl and the Investico platform, we distributed a survey this spring, which was completed by more than 200 researchers from 12 Dutch universities. A third report that they are feeling the direct consequences of Trump’s policies.
In addition to frequently mentioned fields such as climate science and gender studies, history, political science, palaeontology and computer science are also affected. In some cases, researchers are feeling the pinch in their wallets: 22 respondents say that promised funds have been stopped or withdrawn, for example by the American health institutes (NIH), or have become uncertain.
We spoke to more than forty researchers. They tell us how the policy is affecting them and how they are living in uncertainty. Will they be able to travel to the US? Who can they turn to for advice if they lose their funding or data?
Queer of colour
Historian and television producer Manon Portos Minetti (pronouns: they/them) is horrified by developments in the US. Portos Minetti is conducting PhD research in Leiden on the white, right-wing, evangelical media landscape in the US – think ‘televangelism’ – and analyses how conspiracy theories in that circle contribute to the re-election of Donald Trump and the ideal of a ‘pure’ white America.
Portos Minetti would like to do archival research and spend some time in the US as a visiting scholar. “But given my subject matter, people have told me not to even try. Trump only wants you to highlight the positive side of American history, and I’m doing the opposite.”
This affects Portos Minetti not only professionally, but also personally: as a ‘queer person of colour’ with a Uruguayan background, the researcher does not feel safe in the United States and, for reasons of principle, does not even try to enter the country. Sometimes researchers complain about cancelled conferences and trips that do not go ahead. “Maybe I’m simplifying things, but I sometimes wonder: would you have gone to Nazi Germany in 1939?”
Astronomy
Gender, racism, climate change, diversity... Research into such topics is an obvious target in Donald Trump’s regime. But even seemingly neutral disciplines such as astronomy are feeling the effects.
“It’s a tragedy,” says Simon Portegies Zwart, professor of astronomy in Leiden. “I’m in Zoom calls with American colleagues every day, but they don’t even dare to talk about it for fear of reprisals. You never know who’s listening. They’re going from a reasonably functioning democracy to the China of the 1970s.”
At the American space agency NASA, diversity policy is now in danger of being wiped out, he says. He also points to announced budget cuts: “If those go ahead, NASA will be almost abolished.” Planned satellites are being cancelled and an important telescope is at risk. Portegies Zwart: “It’s so short-sighted. Elon Musk’s space programme originated from publicly funded space research, and now they’re cutting it.”
NASA-related departments for atmospheric and oceanic science are dealing with climate change, so you might understand why Trump is targeting them, but why astronomy and space travel? “The only thing I can think of,” says Portegies Zwart, “is that science produces articulate people who think about the world. They are not Trump’s friends. It seems mainly to be resentment.”
And yes, Portegies Zwart also senses that resentment in the Netherlands. He believes the budget cuts are a sign of this. “The direction of politics is currently hostile to science,” he says. “I don’t understand how that’s possible: the people in those parties are usually highly educated, but they have developed a certain resistance to nuance and facts.”
Absolutely nothing
That is another finding of the survey. Respondents were asked: “Apart from the government’s spending cuts, do you have the impression that the academic climate is also changing here in the Netherlands? 76 of the more than 200 respondents answered “yes”.
Most respondents said they had little confidence in the government. “What do you expect from Minister Eppo Bruins?” we asked. “Absolutely nothing,” replied one of them. “Resign,” suggested others. Most remained more serious: they would like to see him stand up for science and speak out against developments in the US.
But the cabinet is keen to avoid antagonising the United States. Prime Minister Schoof recently advised against a proposal by the opposition to set up a fund to bring top scientists from the US to the Netherlands. Such a fund is fine, but it should not be specifically aimed at the US, he argued.
Minister Bruins has now indeed set up a more neutral fund worth 25 million euros to bring ‘threatened’ researchers here. But they do not necessarily have to come from the US. Incidentally, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has not received any additional funding for this.
Europe
Other European countries seem to be more proactive. Thirteen European ministers of education and science (including those from France and Germany) recently sent a letter to the European Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva. Although they do not mention the US, they call for the protection of scientific freedom. The European Union should welcome talent from abroad who are suffering from political interference and brutal funding cuts, the letter states.
The letter fell on fertile ground at the European Commission. President Ursula von der Leyen has since announced half a billion euros in additional investments to attract scientists to Europe. She also wants to enshrine academic freedom in European legislation.
But Minister Bruins did not sign this letter. He did not sign it “because the letter contains a number of proposals that go beyond the minister's portfolio,” his spokesperson said, “such as an immigration framework and reprioritisation of resources within the EU budget”. Bruins does, of course, recognise the importance of academic freedom and attracting talent, his spokesperson emphasised.
- On 20 January, Donald Trump signs more than forty executive orders. Among other things, he wants to put an end to ‘diversity, equal opportunities and inclusion’. Another executive order states that there are only two genders: male and female.
- American scientists are sent politically biased questionnaires about their work. On 5 March, two Wageningen scientists also received such a questionnaire from the US Geological Survey. “Does this research project take appropriate measures to protect and defend women against gender ideology? (yes/no)”
- Trump threatens that universities could lose their funding if they “allow” illegal protests and do too little to combat anti-Semitism. Sixty institutions receive a letter to this effect.
- Trump cuts about $400 million in funding for the prestigious Columbia University. The university allegedly did not provide enough protection for Jewish students.
- Harvard refuses to bow to the demands of the Trump administration. The president says he will freeze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants to Harvard.
- The National Institutes of Health have already lost $2.7 billion in funding. Trump proposes a 50% cut in the budget and also cuts funding for other institutions.
- Trump signs an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education.
Questionnaire in mailbox
Our conversations reveal that researchers are often unsure who to turn to when they need advice, for example about foreign travel, lost funding or data security. Most universities do provide general advice. For example, they urge their staff not to fill in American questionnaires about their research. It caused quite a stir when two Wageningen researchers found such a questionnaire in their mailbox.
Researchers can also turn to policy advisors, managers, knowledge security specialists, and so on. In Rotterdam, there is a special contact point for students and researchers who want to travel to the US. In Groningen, they are working on a general reporting centre, but it is not yet available.
However, inquiries at the universities reveal that they are by no means always aware of the problems their employees are encountering. “The developments are worrying and happening very quickly,” says a spokesperson for the UvA. “The impact is broad, but we do not yet have the final, complete scope.”
Maastricht University even believes that it is not experiencing any “direct consequences”. Nevertheless, three scientists from that university stated in our survey that funding has been withdrawn, that American colleagues are no longer allowed to participate in their research and that access to some scientific information is disappearing.
“The impact is limited at this point,” Tilburg University agrees. “Some scientists have questions, and they can turn to their managers. We want to keep things calm.” What about the possible disappearance of datasets? “In theory, datasets could disappear from American applications, but we have no reason to believe that this is the case. We always ask scientists to store their data in a safe and secure manner.”
Save as...
Storing your data securely yourself is not that easy, says astronomer Portegies Zwart. “I am concerned about American databases that have no copies elsewhere in the world. These are large files; you can’t just buy a 10-terabyte hard drive and download them in an evening. You might need an entire data centre. What’s more, much of that data is updated every day, so would you have to make new copies every day?
The danger is real. At the end of April, physical oceanographer Sjoerd Groeskamp of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) received a disturbing email from NOAA, the American centre for ocean research. Someone warned that a large number of databases were going to be taken out of service. “My time at NOAA is up,” the email said, “and so I want to encourage my scientific friends around the world to save this data for the future.” Groeskamp would like to store the data, but feels like he is shouting in the wilderness: there is no coordination.
Secret data
Surf, the ICT organisation for education and research in the Netherlands, is now busy securing all kinds of databases. So far, 100 terabytes of data have been retrieved. The data is stored on tapes. The idea is that these can be stored on shelves without cooling, which saves a lot of energy. Since Trump’s inauguration, the tapes have been running non-stop. The nature of the data is a secret. “We don’t want to give Trump any ideas,” says innovation manager Magchiel Bijsterbosch. “If he knows what we’re storing, he might delete it even faster.”
Surf does feel the urgency: in principle, a request for data storage can be approved within 24 hours. But Bijsterbosch will not decide for himself which data scientists want to store. “I’m just ready to do what’s necessary.” For example, he has not yet received a request for NOAA’s ocean data.
Coordination
When asked, Marileen Dogterom, president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, suggests that coordination within Europe is needed. “Otherwise, we’ll end up with lots of identical copies and forget something else. But coordination is easier said than done; it has to be done per discipline.” How does she view the events in the US: are they casting a shadow ahead and is something similar about to happen in the Netherlands?
“The developments are very damaging to American science, and therefore also to ours,” says Dogterom. “We are closely intertwined, we have been working together for decades. I myself worked there for five years. American science is simply at the top in many fields. European science is also top-notch, no doubt about it, but if we work together, we will all make more progress.”
What needs to happen? European data storage is a start, but it has yet to get off the ground. Dogterom: “We now need to become less dependent on the US. That is possible, but it is obviously a second choice. In fact, everyone loses if you stop cooperating, just like in that trade war.” Other than that, researchers here can do little more than offer moral support to their colleagues in the US, she says. “All we can do is encourage them to resist.” She is pleased that Harvard, for example, is taking a stand, but she is also concerned about the less wealthy universities scattered throughout the country that provide the lion's share of education: “They cannot afford to lose as much money as Harvard.”
Sliding academic freedom
But Dogterom is not yet afraid that the American situation will quickly spread to the Netherlands, if only because no single party has absolute power here: the Netherlands is a coalition country. Nevertheless, Dogterom does criticise the cabinet. “The minister does speak out, but for the time being, it remains lip service to academic freedom. In practice, you see cuts in independent research. The systematic screening of scientists for knowledge security and determining the language in which education may be provided do not contribute to academic freedom in the Netherlands either.”
Of course, the attack on science in the United States is a frightening prospect. Dogterom: “The events in America show how quickly academic freedom can slide. That is something we want to guard against, that something like that does not happen even in the slightest in the Netherlands.”
This article was written by Bas Belleman (HOP) in collaboration with Emma van Bergeijk (NU.nl), Bijou van der Borst, Machteld Veen and Emiel Woutersen (De Groene Amsterdammer/Investico).
