When the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) convened its yearly meeting in Boston a year prior, President Trump had only been in office for less than a month. The plenary session that initiated this year’s gathering was replete with warnings and pessimistic forecasts from the organization’s leaders, including its executive director Sudip Parikh. Last year, Parikh asserted that the US scientific community was “in a moment of turmoil,” and during the opening address of the organization’s 2026 assembly on 12 February, he affirmed that the preceding year had been challenging.
Nevertheless, speaking from a platform in Phoenix, Parikh also conveyed optimism as the community unified – involving scientific organizations, patient advocates, researchers, and grassroots groups. Collectively, they resisted what he denounced as the “really random, haphazard cuts to science” enacted by the Trump administration.
However, Parikh – who acted as a science adviser to the Republican leadership of the Senate Appropriations Committee from 2001 to 2009 – expressed concern that “too much damage has been done, too much has changed” since the start of Trump’s second presidency and that “an entire generation of scientists has a scar that is not going to go away.” Yet he indicated that the scientific community had demonstrated resilience, forecasting that in the year ahead it would advocate for funding and ensure budget stability amid “the current attacks.”
Earlier this month, Congress blocked severe budget reductions to key government research funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation, proposed by the White House. In the end, the agency’s budget faced a nearly 3.5% cut, while the Trump administration had aimed for a 57% reduction. The National Institutes of Health experienced a minor budget increase of just under 1%, despite the Trump administration requesting cuts of approximately 40%.
“We’re in the rupture, and that indicates that we must construct what follows – it’s going to require passion, it’s going to demand creativity … it’s going to necessitate protests … it’s going to involve politics,” Parikh declared. Although he clarified that “flat funding isn’t an end, in fact, it’s nothing really [to be] celebrated,” he referred to it as “a runway that provides us with an opportunity now to see what lies ahead.”
In her presidential address that succeeded, AAAS president Theresa Maldonado, who serves as the vice president for research and innovation at the University of California system, concurred that it has been “a disruptive year for the scientific community.” She remarked that the US research sector currently faces “substantial” challenges and agreed that the research community must unite and “find direction in ambiguity.”
Maldonado shared preliminary data regarding the federal government’s backing for basic research – typically conducted by universities – over the last four decades. The data suggested that private industry expenditure is approximately equal to government funding today, at about 40%. However, in 1980, the federal government funded around 70% of basic research in the US, while private industry’s contribution was below 15%.
She contended that US basic research has transitioned from being primarily federally funded to a significantly heavier dependence on industry, even as total R&D expenditures have soared. “Thus, in light of the disruptions of 2025, the scientific community in the United States, especially at universities, must reassess how it secures stable funding support for basic research,” she asserted. “We indeed need to reevaluate and recalibrate our relationships with the federal government and our partnerships with industry funders for our basic science.”