In a turnabout that brought relief to UC San Diego researchers, the White House lifted a freeze on federal funding Wednesday. But the reversal left them on edge and with nagging questions.
They interpreted the Trump Administration’s pause on federal grants Monday as a shock and awe effort meant to warn them that the direction of their work could be changed or stopped altogether. That perception is why Dr. Davy Smith, a UC San Diego infectious disease researcher, said he and his colleagues greeted Wednesday’s about-face on the spending freeze both cautiously and critically.
“It just feels very chaotic and whenever I feel like people are making chaotic decisions, it's often not the decision itself, but it's something else that's going on,“ Smith said. “Is it just a show of power? Is it a show of putting you on notice? Is it a distraction from something else? At the moment, we're left with huge amounts of uncertainty that makes everybody anxious, and maybe that's the point.”
Smith said there are few answers but what is abundantly clear is that the financial stakes are high. UC San Diego, considered one of the nation’s top research institutions, is heavily dependent on federal money. Last year alone, the university received nearly $1 billion in funding for research ranging from cancer treatments to vaccines. UC San Diego is the second largest employer in San Diego County, after the U.S. Navy.
Smith said local biotech companies rely on the university’s science graduates as a pipeline for employees.
But that talent supply could be in jeopardy, not just for the biotechs, but for the university itself.
UC San Diego public health scientist Rebecca Fielding-Miller said this week’s federal funding saga has some of her colleagues and students rethinking their careers.
“It's hard to convince people to take a job that might not be stable in the way that they’ve been signaling our jobs might not be,” Fielding-Miller said, referring to the Trump Administration. “Seeing this ongoing push and pull is really concerning for folks who are early in their careers and it's worrying about whether we can keep our staff employed. Federal funding pays for our salary and our staff's salary.”
She believes federal funding of research will come up again. Next time, she hopes there’s a “bi-partisan, constitutional” process with input from scientists.
