Huge cuts in funding in the US were the topic for a recent Globe and Mail article, U.S. research funding cuts change landscape for Canadian universities, researchers
The Globe and Mail article notes:
The Trump administration’s decision to cut funding for research infrastructure has shaken many Canadian researchers who say the aftershocks are expected to resonate for years to come.
Canada’s leading universities are still trying to assess the impact of a series of policy changes from the White House, but it’s clear the landscape for research in both countries has changed in the space of a few weeks.
Canadian university researchers receive a relatively small amount of direct and indirect funding from U.S. agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), but the research relationship between the two countries is closely intertwined, with many projects involving cross-border collaboration.
Some of those ties are now threatened as project funding has been cut or thrown into doubt by new White House directives. In some cases, those orders take specific aim at work on subjects such as climate, the environment, race and gender, and initiatives that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
Vincent Poitout, director of research and innovation at the Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, said he has never seen anything like this moment in his nearly 30-year career.
The US cuts will have devastating impacts on the US and other non-profits around the world and their beneficiaries. It will take a long time to fully understand the impact. The direct impact on Canada will probably be limited. For example, some universities receive 1 or 2 percent of their research budget from the US government. However, the “indirect” impacts will be significant. Canadian non-profits and charities work with US charities and other organizations around the world that will be hurt or devastated by the cuts. Many Canadian charities receive funds from US charities that will not have the capacity to give those funds anymore because of the cuts. So these are not direct, but indirect impacts. Many Canadian research charities are working on topics together with US researchers and now that the US researchers may be defunded or receive less funding, that means the partner of the Canadian charity will be able to do less and less progress is going to be made on a lot of different matters.
These cuts were not just about DEI and climate change but were across-the-board cuts affecting a large number of groups, from US farmers to research institutions to some of the most vulnerable people around the world.