A new Nature article, “The economic effects of federal cuts to US science — in 24 graphs,” reveals how recent disruptions to science funding are rippling far beyond labs and lecture halls. Between January 20 and the end of March, more than 1,000 research grants were terminated across the NIH, NSF, and NASA, and the effects on innovation, economic growth, and the research workforce are already apparent.
IRIS Executive Director Jason Owen-Smith spoke with writer Christine Ro for the article and explained that these cuts affect not just principal investigators but also early-career researchers and trainees. Based on IRIS data, he estimates that 646,000 researchers are supported by federal funding, nearly half of them students or trainees. And the effects don’t stop in academia: “A whole lot of businesses in a really wide range of industries, from local restaurants to construction companies to specialized manufacturing companies are going to see a hit to their bottom line as a result of the cuts.”