Inform and Influence 23: What Can You Do About Trump Chaos?

Since the Trump Administration took office just a month ago, chaos has reigned in the world of science and technology policy. I've been reporting this chaos in this newsletter (Inform and Influence) and gathering job openings from LinkedIn posts published every Friday in my Science and Technology Policy Job Openings Newsletter to help the thousands in our community who have lost jobs.

Today, I want to highlight articles and videos that reflect the themes I've previously discussed. Please take some time to read and watch the highlighted articles. Then, take some time to pause and consider actions you can take, either individually or through your organization.

Write Letters to National Science and Technology Leaders

National Academies is altering pending reports to appease Trump administration, some members say: A letter of protest signed by 100 members was sent to NASEM leadership (Stat)

I know most people will say write and call your members of Congress. That, is of course true, but if our own national science and technology leaders won't stand up to the Trump Administration actions, how can we expect the same from our members of Congress?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my sadness that an organization I worked for 18 years and from whom I received their highest individual staff award, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was preemptively caving into Trump Administration demands by closing down its DEI efforts. Based on this Stat article, it appears the situation has gotten even worse since then.

I hope the action taken by these National Academy members in writing a letter to the leadership is a model others can follow for their own S&T organizations when they see either inaction (e.g., lack of support for members who have lost their jobs) or action (e.g., preemptively taking action thinking to avoid court action or financial loses).

Protest Locally to Your Members Of Congress

Georgia Republican faces town hall backlash over DOGE's 'chainsaw approach' to government cuts: Rep. Rich McCormick, who represents a safe GOP district, came under harsh criticism that focused on the Trump administration’s moves to slash federal jobs and budgets (NBC)

Every so often, members of Congress go home from Washington DC to their home districts to hear from their voters. Go to your members website and look for these events -- typically town halls.

Go to the link above to watch the video of a town hall meeting where the Republican member of Congress in Georgia, home of the Centers for Disease Control, to see a good example of how a question -- with crowd support -- can force a member of Congress to answer questions. Equally important is the crowd questioning the misinformation that was presented.

So don't go alone, but rally the troops to attend as well to have maximum impact.

Increase Visibility of Academic Economics to Your Allies

When I moved from the federal government to a university (Carnegie Mellon), I had a very challenging time understanding what I grew to call "academic economics."

So many decisions at CMU revolved around where the money was coming from, much of it related to overhead. It was always unclear to me where this overhead went, and it was certainly something I viewed as a tax on my hard-won grant funding (most of which went not to fund me but others at the university, including students).

So, when the overhead issue came up a few weeks ago, I looked for more information. I was then called by an NBC reporter to explain the issue, so I was glad I had done my homework. I particularly found useful this graphic from COGR (the gurus on this topic) which I subsequently passed on to the reporter, who put together a great story on the challenges faced by the community (though the quote within it from me is on a totally different angle :-).

At the AAAS annual meeting, I asked for information on where overhead went and was told about how MIT has its "dollar," which they subsequently made public on a webpage that should be a model for other academic institutions.

I think this is helpful for novices to understand how overhead works and counters the impression that it all goes to management (prevalent in policymaker statements and even those from faculty).

This "dollar" is different for every university. I encourage you to encourage your academic leaders to prepare something similar. The information is known as its part of the negotiation universities have with the federal government, so its just about making it visible.

This can help your allies, like myself, counter the misinformation that is out there.

Think Local, Not Just National, Media

When you look at science and technology from a national perspective, you miss the local economic impacts, including job loss. My hometown, Pittsburgh, is a good example of this (as is the CDC example earlier in Atlanta on federal job cuts).

Pittsburgh got out of the economic slump caused by the loss of the steel industry in what is called locally "Eds and Meds." The major universities, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, long-time rivals, worked together along with local foundations, like RK Mellon, to help change the economic base of an entire region of Pennsylvania.

The local newspaper and WESA, the local NPR news station, have done a great job reporting the potential impact. Even going so far as to put together original analysis in this article entitled "As research universities head to court, WESA analysis finds NIH grants lagging during Trump admin." Here's an excerpt, supported by the graphic above:

"NIH data show that the Pittsburgh region has seen a decrease comparable to the nationwide slump. In the time since Trump took office, Pittsburgh research institutions have received $11.65 million, a 58% decrease compared to the same period in 2024. In 2020, the final year of Trump’s first term, Pittsburgh received more than double what it has so far this year: $28.08 million between Jan. 20 and Feb.15."

Now this is something policymaker can understand -- and Pennsylvania's Senators (John Fetterman (D, but seems often to lean independent) and the newly elected Dave McCormick (R), who ousted a long-time Democrat) are important ones to influence.

The action item here is to encourage your local news to report stories similar to this, but make it easier for them by calculating the impacts.

NIH tends to get most of the attention, but similar analysis could be done for NSF, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and National Labs.

Try not to focus just on the loss of research funding, but it implications for the near-term job loss and drop in economic growth. The challenge with the focus research funding is that both the economic and societal benefits are long-term and occur over time.

Policymakers, the public, and us! tend to focus on the short-term when deciding what actions to take, so we need to provide the analysis that support that decisionmaking.

You can do your part by working with colleagues to produce your own analysis, speaking to the leadership at your institution to ask them to conduct this analysis, or reaching out to your local reporters (easy to identify basd on their stories) to ask what questions they have and how you can help.

Further, a simple thank you note to the reporters who are covering the challenges the science and technology comunity is facing, including gathering together the stories from those who have lost their jobs, will encourage them to do more over the long term (and this will be a long fight).

Thank YOU for reading!

I am Dr. Deborah D. Stine, the founder of the Science & Technology (S&T) Policy Academy, which offers workshops for organizations, “done for you” policy analysis, and career, leadership, and new business coaching services.

I spent over 30 years in Washington DC, working for the Obama White House as executive director of the President’s Council on Science and Technology (PCAST), an S&T policy specialist at the Congressional Research Service (a think tank for Congress), and 18 years at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, directing studies on innumerable S&T policy topics.

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If you want to read past editions of this newsletter to catch up on all the latest S&T policy happenings, go here.

See you soon for yet more compelling science and technology policy news and insights. Debbie