Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Maggie Douglas is an agricultural scientist who focuses on how to design more sustainable agriculture systems, particularly pertaining to how to better manage pests while protecting pollinators and other helpful insects.
“The federal government plays a really important role in this research by funding this research,” she said of her work, particularly the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Geological Survey.
According to Professor of Biology David Kushner, funding from the NSF and National Institute of Health (NIH) was frozen earlier this year after already being appropriated, and the proposed budget from the White House featured severe cuts to both.
Lane Whigham is the director of ALLARM, a Dickinson-affiliated organization that tests water quality. ALLARM receives about 70% of funding from grants and 30% from Dickinson. 50% of funding for water sampling comes from two federal organizations: the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Wildlife Foundation, which can continue funding ALLARM because the organization is 40 years old. Currently, ALLARM will continue being funded until the next fiscal quarter.
Specifically, 55% of the NSF’s proposed budget was cut, including 71% of funding allocated for the biological sciences branch. The NIH reduction would have sent funding back to what it was in 2002. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases had $2.3 billion cut for the 2026 fiscal year, a 35% reduction.
Kushner commented that such cuts will also harm the economy: “every $1 that the federal government invests into science research leads to $2.50 going back into the economy.”
“I would say there have been significant cuts. There has also been a lot of chaos,” Douglas added. Every year, scientists usually go through a routine cycle of grant proposals and acceptances, all of which have been disrupted and have led to confusion about what funding is available. Kushner shared that he will not be submitting grant applications to the NSF until the situation is more clear as to what funding is actually available. “A pause on writing grant applications seems prudent, though it is frustrating.” He articulated the “very significant uncertainty” in regards to the process.
Science grant awards are extremely competitive, and based on which group of scientists has the best idea and expertise. Kushner said that the chances of obtaining funding are already usually less than 10%. Douglas commented that she hopes that states will step up to fill the void, but both professors agreed that it will be much harder for anyone to get external grants going forward, and Kushner also commented that to do so has been and will continue to be a significant accomplishment.
The reality going forward will be that less important research will be done overall. Kushner conveyed that labs have started closing, scholars have left the country, and many graduate and PhD programs have been curtailed. In the short and long term, the cuts will discourage young people from doing science, and will have extensive impacts on public health, to which microbiology and virology are essential. Going forward, most science research will happen outside of the U.S., making the country less competitive in providing and implementing the positive effects of science research.
It will be a challenge for young professors to build their scholarship with fewer resources to do so. Douglas has been working on grant applications for private foundations and state-level funding instead.
Applicants to federal grants have been asked not to factor in ways to ensure broad participation across societal groups in their studies. According to Whigham, organizations are avoiding certain terms such as “environmental justice” and “DEI” when applying for grants, but the same work is being done.
Douglas also commented on the sentiment that wealthy institutions don’t need government money, but that the notion misunderstands what scientific research grants are: they are not charity, but an investment in invaluable knowledge, such as medical research. She is highly concerned about cuts to funding aligned with public interest.
Dickinson College has some valuable internal support for professors, though it is a much smaller amount of funding. Douglas reflected on how the Faculty Personnel Committee has asked professors to share how they are being affected, but that since the situation changes every week, it can be hard to articulate. As of November, she had not contacted the committee.
Douglas is also currently doing research with the multi-agency Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, regarding the risks of pesticides to pollinators on the landscape. One priority of the project is to update data processing workflow to create more up to date maps and apply them in different ways. As of November, she had not lost funding for her work, but many of her federal scientist collaborators have been affected.
“I haven’t been immediately impacted, but I have seen these changes impacting federal scientists and their ability to collaborate.” Because of the government shutdown, they were unable to work for over a month, and the federal agencies have lost a lot of staff. Many federal scientists have also been fired or forced to retire.
“They are spread really thin,” said Douglas. “The loss of infrastructure and basic environmental data is really concerning.”
There are various important environmental datasets that the federal government produces that can only be effectively collected by the federal government, and which Douglas particularly relies on. This includes weather and meteorology information, which comes from the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Both institutions have sustained significant cuts, which will possibly degrade environmental data and forecasts that are vital to farmers and other communities.
Another example is the National Climate Assessment, which is an important report collected by the federal government and impacts how communities will be affected by and can adapt to climate change. Past versions of the report have been pulled off the internet, and future versions have been “quashed.” Douglas has had to make contingency plans in the case that any other datasets she relies on will disappear in the future.
Dickinson also funds student projects, the opportunity for which has been reduced at a national level. The National Science Foundation provides summer programs that allow undergraduates to do original research with scholars, and this past summer the number of spots available had significantly decreased. This will possibly lead to fewer students moving forward in research-based careers, which will have significant ramifications for the future of science in the United States.
In STEM, most graduate school opportunities are grant-funded, which impacts their availability. In the environmental studies and sciences, opportunities have been affected across all sectors, including public, private and nonprofit.
Even so, Douglas commented that there will always be a need for clear water and food production. Such research still has immense value, but will look very different going forward.
Kushner similarly remarked that some aspects of science research have been antagonized for many years, especially climate science. In his own field, federal funding for biomedical research has ebbed and flowed over the decades.
Microbiology and virology have both been under pressure since the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of his virology colleagues at other institutions have had their funding terminated. Whigham shared her belief that there should be better public education for sciences, with particular worry for climate change.
