NIH funded work underpins a lot of what happens in the strictly commercial sector. NSF likewise. So, the difference is the work is often decades long, aimed at

NIH funded work underpins a lot of what happens in the strictly commercial sector. NSF likewise. So, the difference is the work is often decades long, aimed at digging foundations and feeds commercialisation where Google might be digging a trench for 5 years but will (-and has) cut for a senior managers KPI. Before this government, you would think a difficult but important long range exercise would be default-continue and now, it's default-end. I'm not here to say one is always better than the other. There certainly were fixed duration no repeat funding rounds but there was a continuity to the science. Do you honestly think the NIH would fund things like mRNA vaccines, in the current political environment? Or NSF back peskovite cell work, given the collapse of solar industry? These things are now down beyond the hole digging phase. There will be other fields which are like they were 10 or 15 years ago, and the fear would be the work will either happen overseas or in a Google, and target a low bar short term outcome rather than establish fundamentals. As a non USA person my contention would be the work will be done but the IPR will be European or Asian IPR. (Not necessarily a bad thing. And to Google, the work they did in project Loon is feeding LEO Sat stuff which defence and other people are now paying for. Its engineering more than fundamental science, but it is good work and it didn't end when alphabet decided to pull out of loon. So there's that)