‘Trump pulled the handbrake on the progress in science’

Nobel Laureate David MacMillan has warned that recent funding cuts to scientific research in the United States have slowed innovation, comparing the impact to “pulling the handbrake” on the world’s most productive scientific ecosystem.US federal government funding for basic research would fall by more than a third from $30 billion in 2026 from $45 billion, according to a new analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) cited by Chemistry World, published by the London-based Royal Society of Chemistry.

Further, if Congress enacts the plan, science funding would decrease more broadly – including basic and applied work, as well as at R&D facilities – by about 22%, from $198 billion to $154 billion, the report added.

“it’s a massive existential threat to what’s happening in the United States. I mean, I can only speak for myself. And I said, you know, I I had no federal funding for eight months, and I. Group of 45 people, and I’m a Nobel Prize winner,” Macmillan, the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, told CNBC-TV18.Even elite institutions such as Harvard University have been forced to drastically reduce admission for PhD courses because of the financial squeeze.

James Robinson, another Nobel Prize Winner, blamed the libertarian coalition between Trump and certain billionaires for the funding cuts. “Basically, I think Mr. Musk thinks that, you know, the government is essentially evil that that you know anything, if the private sector can’t do it, then it’s not worth doing that. The government is just basically a waste of time, and we could just do without the government. I think all the evidence flies in the face of that,” he said.

“I think the people in the Trump government are actually willing to sacrifice these institutions because they see it as un-American in some fundamental way. You know, this has been around for a long time by the way; this way of thinking. It’s just never got political traction before,” he added.

Catch the entire conversation in the video above.