9 ms·

U.S. researchers face new restrictions on publishing with foreign collaborators

420 points by ceejayoz 6mo ago

BeetleB 6mo ago
This could be understandable if some rationale was provided, but it's worse than that: > Neither agency has publicly issued new formal guidance describing these requirements. Instead, officials are informing grantees individually, leaving researchers confused and concerned. They've not even made it official. They're just randomly flagging.
- munk-a 6mo ago
  Unclear arbitrary rules are the best way to rapidly induce a chilling effect. If the enemy is the science happening then a lack of clarity is a highly effective tactic.
  - platinumrad 6mo ago
    I genuinely don't understand how the titans of industry who support the Republican party don't understand that science is the foundation on which their entire fortunes are built.
    - watwut 6mo ago
      They already have that fortune. So, they dont care and dont have to care. Moreover, someone else using science to create fortune is just another competitor and a threat to said fortune.
    - groundzeros2015 6mo ago
      Because science is an abstraction for ann incredibly wide range of human activity some of which benefits industrial applications and some that doesn’t.
    - jmalicki 6mo ago
      It benefited them in the past, that allowed them to build up their fortunes. Bill Gates, for example, is now a big holder of farmland. Science allows others to build up fortunes that challenge theirs, and hurts the stasis in which they become gilded aristocracy. Lowering their taxes while burning everything to the ground benefits them now.
      - munk-a 6mo ago
        I'd argue that it doesn't actually benefit them now since they have more access to comfort than they could ever conceivably consume in their lifetime but I do absolutely agree that they think it benefits them because people who have accumulated wealth to that degree are highly fixated on making the number go up. A less just, less stable society is far more likely to demonize and destroy billionaires. If you have such a high level of wealth the most rational action is charitability to insure the wealth of people who surround you to prevent instability and lower the chances you'll be the victim of a crime carried out due to desperation.
        jmalicki 6mo ago
        They want a less just, more stable society. Allowing others to build wealth just makes society less stable from their point of view. Better to keep the poor poor.
    - dekhn 6mo ago
      I imagine some of them think that the industrial sector could replace academic sector for foundational scientific researcher ("the free market solves all known problems"). I imagine others believe we are headed for a huge crash that affects the whole world, in a way that having a large academic scientific establishment will not help. Just go live in a bunker in NZ until society rebuilds itself, or whatever (Altman). I suspect a few of the folks are just looney, and don't think rationally (Thiel).
      - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
        >some of them think that the industrial sector could replace academic sector for foundational scientific researcher Probably can't happen without huge changes to the tax code IMO. That said, I think bringing the amount of research science we have under the umbrella of academia has been bad because it's basically introduced a plausible deniability and reputation laundering layer that furthers the 3-way revolving door between academia, government and industry.
        dekhn 6mo ago
        I don't think industry can replace academic research for a more fundamental reason. It is rare for industry to willingly research things that are not on a direct path for profitability. Profitibility is calculated in a very local manner (direct cost and revenue); it doesn't consider indirect benefits, such as a basic biology research team discovering some fundamental new detail of biology which allows another team to do a better job discovering a new pharmaceutical drug. It does happen sometimes; my employer is a biotech/pharma that does a huge amount of basic research in addition to its focused pharma research, because they know that the basic research occasionally makes discoveries that greatly improve the pharma process. IIUC, industry does get R&D tax credits- but that's probably not a good incentive system for basic research in industry. What's happening now is that a small number of science-friendly rich people are making foundations/institutes that carry out basic research (Zuckerberg/Chan, Schmidt, and a few others) but it's unlikely those will completely supplant academic research at universities funded by NIH/NSF/DOE.
    - linguae 6mo ago
      In my opinion, it’s been a problem for a long time. Sure, the titans of industry are very interested in the profitable applications of science, but they are generally less interested in investing in science, let alone the science itself. Science is seen as a cost center, and research is inherently risky. Even in the glory days of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC, both were backed by monopolies (the Bell System was the phone monopoly, and Xerox had patents in xerography). The former was subject to special government rules due to AT&T’s constant anti-trust troubles, and the latter’s culture was heavily influenced by ARPA due to ex-ARPA people like Bob Taylor. I am reminded by this quote from an email exchange between Bret Taylor and Alan Kay, published in 2017: “As I pointed out in a previous email, Engelbart couldn't get funding from the very people who made fortunes from his inventions. “It strikes me that many of the tech billionaires have already gotten their "upside" many times over from people like Engelbart and other researchers who were supported by ARPA, Parc, ONR, etc. Why would they insist on more upside, and that their money should be an "investment"? That isn't how the great inventions and fundamental technologies were created that eventually gave rise to the wealth that they tapped into after the fact. “It would be really worth the while of people who do want to make money -- they think in terms of millions and billions -- to understand how the trillions -- those 3 and 4 extra zeros came about that they have tapped into. And to support that process.” https://worrydream.com/2017-12-30-alan/ https://worrydream.com/2017-12-30-alan/ The titans of industry not understanding the importance of science beyond its profitable applications doesn’t surprise me at all.
    - epistasis 6mo ago
      Their fortunes are already built. They have shifted into defensive posture. They don't care about enabling more people to do discovery, that actually puts their position at great risk of disruption. What they want is to have very little innovation, and be able to capture the innovation that squeaks through.
      - gwerbin 6mo ago
        I don't think it's true that they want little innovation. This is a political move. It's a setup for an environment where only politically approved research can happen. So the innovation machine eventually restarts, but without all the side effects of things like unbiased public policy research and social justice movements that are politically misaligned with the ultimate goal of corporate autocracy presiding over techno-serfdom.
        epistasis 6mo ago
        Agreed, that's a better way to phrase my own thoughts than I was able to express.
        whateverboat 6mo ago
        But eventually, this always fails as history has shown over and over again. It might take 40-50 years, but it will fail with devastating effects.
        epistasis 6mo ago
        Yes, and one reason the US has been so successful is because in the past 1) it was generally agreed that family dynasties should have limited ability to pass wealth generation to generation, and 2) that governance should be separated from wealth. That's all being abandoned.
        gwerbin 6mo ago
        I don't think either your assertions (1) and (2) have been particularly consistent throughout US history. Leave aside the difficulty of defining what "successful" means, or should mean. Just look at the (first) Gilded Age. It's pretty much you claim we didn't have in the past: Family dynasties and government sympathetic to the interests of wealthy business stakeholders. It took the better part of a century of hard fighting (including literal combat in some cases) to bring that to an end, and then we had what, 40 years? before the accumulated momentum of conservatism brought on the Reagan era. And it's not a matter of just unions fighting it out in the textile mills and coal mines and railcar assembly plants either. After the Civil War the US Army was engaged in a widespread program of what would today be categorized as genocide, in service of business interests that thought they could make more money if you didn't have a pre-existing civilization in the Great Plains. Go back a few decades further and you have the Civil War itself. Slavery was first and foremost profitable for cash crop plantation owners; everything follows from that.
    - NooneAtAll3 6mo ago
      if you "genuinely" want to understand, start considering the opposite - what is the easiest way to defend policy like this? "science with outside helps the other side" - done. Current administration sees US as losing its positions, so the main answer is to close the leaks that feed its opponents with US effort
      - platinumrad 6mo ago
        I am genuinely unable to understand because even if the United States is descending into fascism or whatever, research is the last thing that an effective state wants to disrupt and scientists are one of the last groups that an effective state wants to alienate. I'm not just referring to restrictions on collaborations with foreign researchers, although I frankly do not see how that meaningfully reduces the ability of opponents to benefit from US research unless we kill open publishing as well. I'm talking about the last year and a half of destroying the ability of every basic researcher I know to work in a stable and predictable environment.
        runako 6mo ago
        1. Much of US policy toward science is backlash to Covid vaccinations. Being anti-Science is a way of preventing Science from inflicting itself on the populace again in the future. 2. Science trends toward meritocracy, which is bad if your goal is to promote a particular social hierarchy.
        Hikikomori 6mo ago
        It's been there so much longer, even Carl Sagan talked about it, and its inherently tied to religion.
        groundzeros2015 6mo ago
        We just did a 30 year run of “religious people are dumb and holding bus back” and it didn’t start a science boom and just made people more unhappy and disaffected. And 2020 further revealed that science is not immune from politics or its own religious ideals.
    - barbazoo 6mo ago
      But it isn't required in order for them to get richer at this point.
    - sowbug 6mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons Step 1. Exploit the commons. Step 2. Shut the door.
    - rolph 6mo ago
      heres a bit of a fringe view, from me, and others. governments need influence, and yellow the truth,so as to manage the overall situation, thats a first assumption. now we see a lot of actions that in the end seemlike footgunning, basically derailing the foundations of civilization. perhaps this is not megalomania, greed, or sickness. perhaps, as is often portrayed in popular scifi, we are all doomed to face a terrible challange, there are only few very closed mouth individuals that absolutely know. [remember this is a fringe conspiracy hypothesis] we are being distracted and kept on the dark about impending catastrophe,so as to stave off absolute chaos,little hope of influencing anyone except by overwhelming show of force. perhaps "they" know its a matter of years, not decades until we experience that thing that suddenly, seemingly cyclically clears the board and the whole assembly begins again from square 2,or 3,not quite square one. [Re fringe;conspiracy] "they" are behaving in an all bets are off manner, keeping thier hand hidden, playing an endgame rather than making a benign effort.
    - root_axis 6mo ago
      That's just the political division. Scientists and academic types tend to lean left, the republicans are a right leaning party so they oppose them. It's not even a Trump thing, it's been like this for decades, though Trump is obviously more aggressive than previous Republican leaders.
- epistasis 6mo ago
  This is a very common thing for corrupt governments. No rules are clear, so that those at the top can dictate whatever they want whenever they want. Which means that the only safe route is to always be on very very good terms with leadership. Very sad to see the US fall away from the rule of law, into kleptocracy. See also the way that grants are now being distributed at NCI and NSF. Only very large grants for many many years, to reward those who are in the favored status, and kill those who are disfavored. Decision making is random and capricious, just be sure to bribe those at the top with whatever favors you can.
  - nickff 6mo ago
    This is also very foreseeable for an administrative state, and this slippery slope has been predicted for over a century. Rule by administrators (or bureaucrats) is just as opaque/unaccountable/corrupt, and as the extent of their power grew, it was inevitable that the political leadership would exploit the power (as has already happened many times before). It seems like nobody (at least on the liberal end of the spectrum) really cared about the arbitrary use of power when it was mostly left-liberals making the choices. The way to fix this is to reduce the power of the administrative state, not to just complain about Trump, but I have little hope of a real solution.
    - mothballed 6mo ago
      NCI and NSF recipients getting a taste of what EPA, DEA and ATF was doing to the plebs all along with random "interpretations" and bad-faith presentations of them to judge and jury. Maybe that whole "the academics and bureaucrats are so smart we totally need to cede power from congress to the executive" wasn't such a bright idea after all. Of course, it's totally lost on the academic-bureaucratic class that the anti-intellectuals wouldn't hesitate to cut off their nose to spite their face by electing a president that would turn around and surprise pikachu the academics with the very machine they had helped build. Now that academics are losing their grips within the bureaucratic apparatus, suddenly they are deciding to rethink their strategy -- but it's not a coming to Jesus moment, but rather just a reactionary response.
- gwbas1c 6mo ago
  See my top-level comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48238900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48238900
- somenameforme 6mo ago
  The article mentions, oddly enough at literally the very bottom, that one of the main laws being used is the 'Wolf Amendment' [1], passed in 2011. It's what prevented Chinese from working on the ISS and arguably is why China now has its own space station. It's an extremely dumb law that's been passed and reauthorized repeatedly by every single administration and Congress since Obama who it was passed under. Just quoting Wiki since it's quite succinct and accurate on this: "[The Wolf Amendment] prohibits the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from using government funds to engage in direct, bilateral cooperation with the Chinese government and China-affiliated organizations from its activities without explicit authorization from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Congress." For another consequence of this law, when China relatively recently carried out a sample return from the Moon, they sought to share the resultant rocks/material with countries worldwide, much like NASA did in the 60s. Except Americans couldn't accept them, at least not without jumping through a million hoops first, due to this law. It's one of the ever more frequent 'I'm going to punch myself in the face because I don't like you' acts by governments. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment
  - ajross 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - casey2 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      - ajross 5mo ago
        The space station thing is a side quest that has nothing to do with the linked article. I'll happily concede the point, even though it seems pretty questionable to me. It's still not remotely true that (sigh) "Obummer" was using the law to threaten grants and censor research. Trump did that. Only Trump did that. And that's a whole lot worse than wasted effort on a dumb space station.
        5mo ago
- rapiz 6mo ago
  US seems to be learning from China very quick. Congrats.
  - Danox 6mo ago
    The USA isn’t learning from China. The USA is learning from Russia…
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  > They're just randomly flagging What is the purported legal authority they’re acting under? Some of the housekeeping in the next years will involve pulling those statutes.
- shevy-java 6mo ago
  There is a rationale: it is an ideology that Trump uses here. It is very similar to the 1930s, just adapted to a more "modern" era, with entertainment (if people manage to not die due to boredom, watching epic movies such as Melania ...). Did people already forget a certain billionaire raising his right arm? They are trolling on top of pillaging the taxpayers here.
- e40 5mo ago
  Sounds like they took a page from Google on how to close accounts without warning or explanation.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
mnky9800n 6mo ago
I wonder when the trump administration will ever decide if it wants to Be isolationist or global imperialist.
- jolmg 6mo ago
  They're not mutually exclusive
  - bilbo0s 6mo ago
    This. The question is what serves their interests at the time? Whatever serves their interests at a given time, well, that’s what they believe at that time. That will have no bearing on what they believe in the future.
  - morkalork 6mo ago
    The scary this is what that looks like in practice
- unethical_ban 6mo ago
  It's a decent bet that they are truly foolish. I've said this before. If the administration isn't acting as agents of a hostile nation trying to destroy America from within and scuttle its global leadership, they're doing a great job acting like it. Short of them just turning a nuke on a large city, I can't think of better ways to harm America without fomenting an actual uprising than what they're doing to us today.
- jshier 6mo ago
  Autarky requires imperialism to grab the resources needed to be fully isolationist. So it's really both, until they hit the tipping point to become fully isolated. But this is something else. This is just the anti-science ignorentsia coming together with the xenophobic white supremacists to screw America. They say Trump can't bring people together, but he's done a great job of uniting all the worst people in the country.
- loudmax 6mo ago
  Being isolationist or global imperialist implies articulating different strategies and values. This is an administration that has neither of those.
kahrl 6mo ago
Well, we can't have have the non indoctrinated taking away our freedom. USA USA USA.
Avicebron 6mo ago
It's interesting after reading briefly about this, but I think previously NIH funding was more permissive to directly awarding funds to foreign nationals/groups. But interestingly enough, China doesn't do the same for say foreign researchers trying to collaborate with chinese researchers. (Unless you already live there etc etc). So it was indeed asymmetrical.
- neuronexmachina 6mo ago
  Do you have a reference for that? At least based on this, it seems like China's trying to increase collaboration and funding for joint research projects with non-Chinese researchers: * https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/english/site_1/international/D2/2018/01-16/78.html https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/english/site_1/international/D2/2018... * https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260107-overseas-scholars-drawn-to-china-s-scientific-clout-funding https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260107-overseas-scho...
petcat 6mo ago
The article says that these restrictions on research with a "foreign component" have been in place since at least 2003 but have only recently been clarified to include the researchers themselves. It's actually more surprising to me that NIH and NASA research co-authored by non-Americans was supposedly not requiring scrutiny under the "foreign component" rules before this.
- matthewdgreen 6mo ago
  Many graduate students, faculty and post-docs are foreign citizens. So banning them from conducting research could potentially shut down big research projects. It is not surprising to me that the NIH and other funding agencies didn't want to do this. (It is also unsurprising to me that the current administration would have few qualms about disrupting research: we know they don't care, ask the cancer studies that had to be saved with private Foundation funding last year.) Before you start throwing disruptive rules at projects, you generally want to know that there is a critical security concern for that specific work. Most research just gets published a few months later, so foreign interests can just read it in a journal and download the dataset.
  - wyldberry 6mo ago
    I don't have great sources on hand, this is just coming from a career situated in or adjacent to protecting research and IP from espionage. As the national labs and prime defense contractors got exceptional at defending their networks, this pushed state actors into attempting espionage at the university level. It's a lot easier to get access to underpaid graduate students, fresh post-docs, etc who are doing the heavy researching lift day-to-day work. You have way more tools in your HUMINT arsenal with this population. Sometimes research has natsec implications even though it is not in pre-class or classified status. A famous example of this is how the US created it's stealth technology initially. "The foundation for a science-based approach to the development of stealth aircraft was laid by Petr Ufimtsev, a Soviet physicist. In 1962, Sovietskoye Radio publishing house issued his book Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction that described the mathematical rationale for the development of stealth vehicles. In the USSR, these ideas did not go any further, however, the Americans were very enthusiastic about them. Ufimtsev’s physical theory of diffraction has become, they say, the cornerstone of a breakthrough in the stealth technology. In the 1970s, the work was started in the USA on the basis of this knowledge as a result of which breakthrough stealth aircraft − Lockheed F-117 fighter and Northrop B-2 strategic bomber – have been produced." https://rostec.ru/en/media/news/visible-invisible-stealth-technology-history/#middle https://rostec.ru/en/media/news/visible-invisible-stealth-te...
kittikitti 6mo ago
I knew that most research had ties to government funding but it was only recently that I realized the scale of it. Along with the pullback of any government funding remotely resembling DEI, policies like the one described in the article wouldn't decimate research from my previous understanding. In terms of influence, it's now clear to me that the government controls anywhere between 75 to 99% of academic research. I feel foolish for believing all the details in subsequent papers from the research about why their work is necessary or important. It turns out, all of it is because the government requested it and really nothing else.
- convolvatron 6mo ago
  that's not entirely true, it is to some degree. by convention there have been a few buffer layers between actual grant allocation and naked politics. funding gets allocated to someplace like NSF, NIH, ONR or DARPA. Those organizations have directorates or area concentrations. Each directorate has a program manager (the terms vary based on org) who puts out request for proposals (grant applications). The PMs are generally chosen from the sciences, and are responsible for authoring RFPs that meet strategic goals, and negotiate with the PIs (grant recipients) about terms and sizes and such. So there are really two political realms, above the funding agency, and underneath, and its entire function is reconcile those worlds in a pretty vague way with a certain amount of autonomy given to the PM. This isn't 100% great, but if you have good PM, some good science does get funding. While this seems like a lot of machinery, if you short circuit all of it, and have the presidents direct flunkies make funding decisions, that basically means that almost no real science gets done.
- bo1024 6mo ago
  Your current understanding also seems a bit warped. The US government provides the source of a lot of research funding but historically exerts little "control". Generally grant applications are evaluated by panels of researchers who don't work for the federal government. Also, this government funding supports fundamental innovations that private companies wouldn't fund because it's too general and too far from monetizable. But after those breakthroughs happen funded by public research, private industry benefits enormously. This includes most health and medical advances and the science underlying most technological advances. So government funding doesn't conflict with the work being necessary or important, on the contrary, it is possibly more important long-term. Disclaimer? The government funds some of my research.
WaitWaitWha 6mo ago
Can we take a step back and review the article and the underlying information? I am very much against any arbitrary and often unnecessary government interference. I also publish. Lot's of weasel words. This is not unprecedented. Restrictions tied to foreign collaboration are not new, NIH has done this as far back as 2018 if I recall. Yes, foreign research restrictions have escalated recently. We have no official statement for either agencies. Collaborating on sensitive or classified material with identified FOCI coauthors is and always have been highly scrutinized activity. Title 32 CFR 117.11 is old. It goes back as far as DoD 5220.22-M in the '90s. NISPM-33 Office of Science and Technology Policy efforts have been around since 2018 too or so (i am sooo old :/). This appears to be a continuation of escalation of research-security, rather than a wholly unprecedented break from prior policy.
SubiculumCode 6mo ago
"In response to Inside Higher Ed’s questions about Science’s reporting, an NIH spokesperson emailed a statement Thursday that referenced just one set of grant programs: the Institutional Development Award (IDeA). NIH’s website says the awards go to Puerto Rico and 23 states that “historically have had low levels of NIH funding." "The recent update to IDeA grantees was a clarification of longstanding policy, not a new directive,” the spokesperson said. “IDeA program funding has always been restricted to U.S.-based institutions and entities, with foreign institutions, non-domestic components of U.S. organizations, and all foreign components explicitly prohibited. This reflects Congress’s intent that IDeA funds be used exclusively for research capacity building within the United States—and specifically within eligible IDeA states and territories. NIH’s statement didn’t mention any other grant programs or answer multiple written questions.” [1] [1] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/05/22/report-nih-nasa-restrict-co-authoring-foreign-scientists https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/05/22/r...
- SubiculumCode 6mo ago
  I do not know yet if this was NIH tricky wording to insidehighered.com, or if it is really restricted to this one small program. edit: that said, from my experience, and some reporting, foreign contracts (e.g. a foreign collaborating researcher) have been regularly denied in the new NIH.
- gcanyon 6mo ago
  > a clarification of longstanding policy, not a new directive I call BS.
josefritzishere 6mo ago
Xenophobia makes for poor science.
gwbas1c 6mo ago
This happens when a country is preparing to go to war. It's what happened with nuclear research around the start of the Manhattan project.
- dghlsakjg 6mo ago
  The US is currently at war by all definitions except a declaration of war.
- BeetleB 6mo ago
  So, medical research (NIH grants) is in preparation for going to war? Is the US planning on using biological agents?
  - dlahoda 5mo ago
    Search story of Eco Health Alliance. It tells Usa based org got grant to research Coronaviruses. And outsourced research to China Wuhan.
    - antonvs 5mo ago
      > It tells Usa based org got grant to research Coronaviruses. Yes, because coronaviruses are one of the largest and most common family of viruses, that cause everything from the common cold to SARS and MERS. Researching coronaviruses was important long before COVID-19. Educating yourself is a good antidote to irrational conspiracy theories.
sega_sai 6mo ago
The country elects an autocrat who fires experts and puts stooges in positions of power. Surprise-surprise that leads to idiotic policies, some of them mimicking the best hits of Soviet Union.
- jsrcout 6mo ago
  Oh, absolutely. For instance I never thought Lysenkoism would happen again, but the conditions are ripe for it.
gcanyon 6mo ago
If it was their actual goal to destroy the US leadership role in research worldwide, they couldn't do more than they are.
- Danox 6mo ago
  Unfortunately, we are seeing the decline of the USA. The rest of the world is going to move on without us.
  - _kulang 6mo ago
    I think we’ve seen the decline of the USA and have already moved on without them. Not everything important is US-centric and about AI and oil
    - hedora 5mo ago
      The US is way behind on AI from a perf/dollar perspective and is rapidly driving the rest of the world off oil by disrupting supply chains. I think we’ll see an even bigger economic reckoning in 2027-28, and then the pendulum will swing back. The Great Depression and Hoovervilles paved the way for the New Deal. Trump’s corruption and economic policies are likely going to be even more disastrous than that. Hopefully we can pick up the pieces quickly and without the benefit of World Wars.
- andix 6mo ago
  Why would you assume this isn't their goal?
  - gcanyon 5mo ago
    Yikes Hope? Wishful thinking?
    - andix 5mo ago
      There are many historic examples of "dumbing down" a country by their government. I've tried to list some here, but got flagged. Ask your favorite Chatbot to assemble one. A lot of them share similarities with the current situation in the US. This is not happening by accident.
b00ty4breakfast 6mo ago
I can't help but think that there is a deliberate effort to remove the US from it's position in the global geopolitical arena. And not merely as a by-product of policy decisions but specifically to damage the American reputation.
- andix 6mo ago
  [flagged]
- conception 6mo ago
  There is. You can read it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
  - daveguy 6mo ago
    Dumpty's loyalty is with whoever will give him the most money and power as a person. Always has been.
    - Frost1x 6mo ago
      Maybe money but clearly not power. The American voting population gave him more power than pretty much anyone in many senses of the word “power,” yet he’s clearly not loyal to the American voting population. So I think money or wealth is the bigger weight here.
      - RealityVoid 6mo ago
        Or he's just... ya'know... stupid.
      - killerstorm 6mo ago
        The American voting population was manipulated to give him power. The ones which helped with manipulation are effectively in control. Or do you think all the wedge issues organically crystallized in voters' minds?..
airport_barfly 6mo ago
What's really insidious is that they're not allowing these papers to be included in progress reports. > After removing the 16 papers, “I said, well, Jesus, we’re not reporting anything. It’s very frustrating,” Drummond says. “I don’t know how they’re going to evaluate our productivity.” This creates bad data where teams look less productive than they actually are. Next year, they'll use that as an excuse to cut funding.
amanaplanacanal 6mo ago
Right up there with the stupidity of the Genesis mission. Good video from Angela Collier: https://youtu.be/p6Ejmhwb8Sc?si=ovsv05uRHYP2ZrPC https://youtu.be/p6Ejmhwb8Sc?si=ovsv05uRHYP2ZrPC
charcircuit 6mo ago
Foreigners are not entitled to my tax dollars. They can find other ways to fund their work.
- ranguna 6mo ago
  I don't think that's how it works, mate.
  - charcircuit 6mo ago
    We fought a whole war over not sending our taxes to foreigners (Britain). A foreign nation being entitled to your tax money is what happens when that foreign nation has conquered you.
    - ranguna 5mo ago
      Nops, I still think your missing the mark here
    - kahrl 5mo ago
      DERKA DERKA
- mkw5053 5mo ago
  [flagged]
- kahrl 5mo ago
  THEY DERKIN OUR DERBS!!!!!
class4behavior 6mo ago
> “The easy route for us would be just to cut off foreign involvement entirely and not include foreign authors. And that to us is a concession to some form of xenophobia.” I mean, what else so you expect if you elect a majority of actual fascists? A fascist discriminates on every front imaginable. Things haven't become much worse simply because of the filibuster.
Sparkyte 6mo ago
This is a reasonable take with possibilities of introducing ways to expedite the verification of researchers and contributors. Foreign or not. The problem with scientific papers is that there is an exploitive macro economy of how many one can publish without sold evidence or research attached to the paper itself.
- hedora 5mo ago
  So, you’re saying the solution to papers not being adequately peer reviewed (which is a strong claim that I disagree with) is to use political ideology tests to let the current administration arbitrarily decide who is allowed to publish?
  - Sparkyte 5mo ago
    I am actually not for the current administration. However having legal and regulatory standards on scientific papers is essential. I just wish it was established under a different administration so it could establish pathways to ensure international collaboration.
linuxhansl 6mo ago
Are we purposefully dumbing down the country now? Sure, some things are trade-secrets or national security issues or whatnot, but those are already not shared. More than militarily the US has always led with soft-power (science, culture, etc). We are throwing all this soft-power away. Perhaps there is a legitimate reason, but like so many things in this administration this feels like a knee-jerk reaction to... Something.
- andix 6mo ago
  > Are we purposefully dumbing down the country now? Yes.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
elzbardico 6mo ago
Most right-wing politicians behind this kind of thing have no idea how much foreign students are essential for american scientific and technological leadership. If they are so hell bent on keeping the "Empire at all costs", on keeping America as a hegemon, brain-draining their adversaries is an excellent strategy. Any chinese materials sciences specialist working on hypersonic missiles in America is on one less chinese guy doing the same in China.
golem14 6mo ago
One has no rules Is not precise One rarely acts The same way twice One spurns no device Practicing the art of the possible One always picks The easy fight One praises fools One smothers light One shifts left to right It's part of the art of the possible ... One always claims Mistakes were planned When risk is slight One takes one's stand With much sleight of hand Politics—the art of the possible - Evita
shevy-java 6mo ago
A certain orange guy wants to drag everything down to his level: dumbness. Except when it comes to corruption, then he is truly king.
whatever1 5mo ago
If LLMs really can act as invetors why US should export its research for free? The return will be 0. Today the rationale for open research is that openness accelerates it. What if you just need more electricity and silicon to accelerate it?
h4kunamata 5mo ago
Ahh the USA, always thinking they are the top in command and yet, its citizen cannot afford to get sick. President after President, it goes from bad to worse. A potato would know to never mess up with researches, the more you limit, the less access and knowledge you have access to.
- ratmeadow 5mo ago
  They just know their constitutional rights as law abiding american citizens to die from easily preventable illness they can't afford treatment for!
g42gregory 5mo ago
We were told by some very brilliant people (Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and to a lesser extent Demis Hassabis), that AI will shortly automate much of Research and we won't need that many researchers anymore. Therefore, these personnel restrictions shouldn't matter, right?
- tim333 5mo ago
  I think they are hoping for a speedup more than less researchers.
  - g42gregory 5mo ago
    No, they were pretty clear that researchers will get replaced. By the AGI in the year no other than 2026.
3vo-ai 5mo ago
[flagged]
ascotan 5mo ago
Love reading all the TDS comments about Americans are the new Nazis and Orange Man is bad. However, this article isn't very good: NIH has publish guidance: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-155.html https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-1... It seems like the intent here is to prevent "subawards" going to foreign linked entities where the USG can't track it. The NIH is introducing a new linked award system where the foreign entity receives their own independent grant number and that primary on the application must be a US entity. This introduces new activity codes (PF5 regular grant and UF5 cooperative agreement) where upon granting the new money the foreign entity will receive their own RF2 grant or UL2 grant (based on the original grant type). Under the old system a grant to a US institution (like a university) could be doled out to foreigner institutions as subawards without the USG seeing where the money was going. This is a violation of FFATA and the USG wants to track these dollars because US universities are not reporting it. Additionally the USG has grown increasing suspicious of certain countries (think russia, china) that are getting subawards that are effectively transferring US IP to these entities via pliant US individuals at an institution. This forces the PI to get a linked award and pull these folks out of the shadows where they are now identified and where the USG can run a background check on them. This also deals with university outsourcing where an institution can get a grant and then simply pass the money off (mostly entirely) to a foreign entity where the US university became essentially a shadow distribution vehicle. Under the new rules to do this the PI must show that but funnel funds to a foreign institution that institution must offer something not readily available in the US. Once a foreign funded entity has received money in this way and then violates policy, or breached security it falls on the university to police their grants (which mostly they can't do effectively). So the USG wants to cut out the middleman and for the foreign entity to become a direct recipient of the grant making them legal liable to the USG for all the terms and conditions. If you violate the grant the NIH can sanction them directly without going through the university.
- AmazingEveryDay 5mo ago
  Sometimes it is a lot to wallow through the comments here, to find the few insightful ones. Thanks!
mik09 5mo ago
[dead]

420 points by ceejayoz 6mo ago

This could be understandable if some rationale was provided, but it's worse than that: > Neither agency has publicly issued new formal guidance describing these requirements. Instead, officials are informing grantees individually, leaving researchers confused and concerned. They've not even made it official. They're just randomly flagging.

munk-a 6mo ago
Unclear arbitrary rules are the best way to rapidly induce a chilling effect. If the enemy is the science happening then a lack of clarity is a highly effective tactic.
- platinumrad 6mo ago
  I genuinely don't understand how the titans of industry who support the Republican party don't understand that science is the foundation on which their entire fortunes are built.
  - watwut 6mo ago
    They already have that fortune. So, they dont care and dont have to care. Moreover, someone else using science to create fortune is just another competitor and a threat to said fortune.
  - groundzeros2015 6mo ago
    Because science is an abstraction for ann incredibly wide range of human activity some of which benefits industrial applications and some that doesn’t.
  - jmalicki 6mo ago
    It benefited them in the past, that allowed them to build up their fortunes. Bill Gates, for example, is now a big holder of farmland. Science allows others to build up fortunes that challenge theirs, and hurts the stasis in which they become gilded aristocracy. Lowering their taxes while burning everything to the ground benefits them now.
    - munk-a 6mo ago
      I'd argue that it doesn't actually benefit them now since they have more access to comfort than they could ever conceivably consume in their lifetime but I do absolutely agree that they think it benefits them because people who have accumulated wealth to that degree are highly fixated on making the number go up. A less just, less stable society is far more likely to demonize and destroy billionaires. If you have such a high level of wealth the most rational action is charitability to insure the wealth of people who surround you to prevent instability and lower the chances you'll be the victim of a crime carried out due to desperation.
      - jmalicki 6mo ago
        They want a less just, more stable society. Allowing others to build wealth just makes society less stable from their point of view. Better to keep the poor poor.
  - dekhn 6mo ago
    I imagine some of them think that the industrial sector could replace academic sector for foundational scientific researcher ("the free market solves all known problems"). I imagine others believe we are headed for a huge crash that affects the whole world, in a way that having a large academic scientific establishment will not help. Just go live in a bunker in NZ until society rebuilds itself, or whatever (Altman). I suspect a few of the folks are just looney, and don't think rationally (Thiel).
    - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
      >some of them think that the industrial sector could replace academic sector for foundational scientific researcher Probably can't happen without huge changes to the tax code IMO. That said, I think bringing the amount of research science we have under the umbrella of academia has been bad because it's basically introduced a plausible deniability and reputation laundering layer that furthers the 3-way revolving door between academia, government and industry.
      - dekhn 6mo ago
        I don't think industry can replace academic research for a more fundamental reason. It is rare for industry to willingly research things that are not on a direct path for profitability. Profitibility is calculated in a very local manner (direct cost and revenue); it doesn't consider indirect benefits, such as a basic biology research team discovering some fundamental new detail of biology which allows another team to do a better job discovering a new pharmaceutical drug. It does happen sometimes; my employer is a biotech/pharma that does a huge amount of basic research in addition to its focused pharma research, because they know that the basic research occasionally makes discoveries that greatly improve the pharma process. IIUC, industry does get R&D tax credits- but that's probably not a good incentive system for basic research in industry. What's happening now is that a small number of science-friendly rich people are making foundations/institutes that carry out basic research (Zuckerberg/Chan, Schmidt, and a few others) but it's unlikely those will completely supplant academic research at universities funded by NIH/NSF/DOE.
  - linguae 6mo ago
    In my opinion, it’s been a problem for a long time. Sure, the titans of industry are very interested in the profitable applications of science, but they are generally less interested in investing in science, let alone the science itself. Science is seen as a cost center, and research is inherently risky. Even in the glory days of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC, both were backed by monopolies (the Bell System was the phone monopoly, and Xerox had patents in xerography). The former was subject to special government rules due to AT&T’s constant anti-trust troubles, and the latter’s culture was heavily influenced by ARPA due to ex-ARPA people like Bob Taylor. I am reminded by this quote from an email exchange between Bret Taylor and Alan Kay, published in 2017: “As I pointed out in a previous email, Engelbart couldn't get funding from the very people who made fortunes from his inventions. “It strikes me that many of the tech billionaires have already gotten their "upside" many times over from people like Engelbart and other researchers who were supported by ARPA, Parc, ONR, etc. Why would they insist on more upside, and that their money should be an "investment"? That isn't how the great inventions and fundamental technologies were created that eventually gave rise to the wealth that they tapped into after the fact. “It would be really worth the while of people who do want to make money -- they think in terms of millions and billions -- to understand how the trillions -- those 3 and 4 extra zeros came about that they have tapped into. And to support that process.” https://worrydream.com/2017-12-30-alan/ https://worrydream.com/2017-12-30-alan/ The titans of industry not understanding the importance of science beyond its profitable applications doesn’t surprise me at all.
  - epistasis 6mo ago
    Their fortunes are already built. They have shifted into defensive posture. They don't care about enabling more people to do discovery, that actually puts their position at great risk of disruption. What they want is to have very little innovation, and be able to capture the innovation that squeaks through.
    - gwerbin 6mo ago
      I don't think it's true that they want little innovation. This is a political move. It's a setup for an environment where only politically approved research can happen. So the innovation machine eventually restarts, but without all the side effects of things like unbiased public policy research and social justice movements that are politically misaligned with the ultimate goal of corporate autocracy presiding over techno-serfdom.
      - epistasis 6mo ago
        Agreed, that's a better way to phrase my own thoughts than I was able to express.
      - whateverboat 6mo ago
        But eventually, this always fails as history has shown over and over again. It might take 40-50 years, but it will fail with devastating effects.
        epistasis 6mo ago
        Yes, and one reason the US has been so successful is because in the past 1) it was generally agreed that family dynasties should have limited ability to pass wealth generation to generation, and 2) that governance should be separated from wealth. That's all being abandoned.
        gwerbin 6mo ago
        I don't think either your assertions (1) and (2) have been particularly consistent throughout US history. Leave aside the difficulty of defining what "successful" means, or should mean. Just look at the (first) Gilded Age. It's pretty much you claim we didn't have in the past: Family dynasties and government sympathetic to the interests of wealthy business stakeholders. It took the better part of a century of hard fighting (including literal combat in some cases) to bring that to an end, and then we had what, 40 years? before the accumulated momentum of conservatism brought on the Reagan era. And it's not a matter of just unions fighting it out in the textile mills and coal mines and railcar assembly plants either. After the Civil War the US Army was engaged in a widespread program of what would today be categorized as genocide, in service of business interests that thought they could make more money if you didn't have a pre-existing civilization in the Great Plains. Go back a few decades further and you have the Civil War itself. Slavery was first and foremost profitable for cash crop plantation owners; everything follows from that.
  - NooneAtAll3 6mo ago
    if you "genuinely" want to understand, start considering the opposite - what is the easiest way to defend policy like this? "science with outside helps the other side" - done. Current administration sees US as losing its positions, so the main answer is to close the leaks that feed its opponents with US effort
    - platinumrad 6mo ago
      I am genuinely unable to understand because even if the United States is descending into fascism or whatever, research is the last thing that an effective state wants to disrupt and scientists are one of the last groups that an effective state wants to alienate. I'm not just referring to restrictions on collaborations with foreign researchers, although I frankly do not see how that meaningfully reduces the ability of opponents to benefit from US research unless we kill open publishing as well. I'm talking about the last year and a half of destroying the ability of every basic researcher I know to work in a stable and predictable environment.
      - runako 6mo ago
        1. Much of US policy toward science is backlash to Covid vaccinations. Being anti-Science is a way of preventing Science from inflicting itself on the populace again in the future. 2. Science trends toward meritocracy, which is bad if your goal is to promote a particular social hierarchy.
        Hikikomori 6mo ago
        It's been there so much longer, even Carl Sagan talked about it, and its inherently tied to religion.
        groundzeros2015 6mo ago
        We just did a 30 year run of “religious people are dumb and holding bus back” and it didn’t start a science boom and just made people more unhappy and disaffected. And 2020 further revealed that science is not immune from politics or its own religious ideals.
  - barbazoo 6mo ago
    But it isn't required in order for them to get richer at this point.
  - sowbug 6mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons Step 1. Exploit the commons. Step 2. Shut the door.
  - rolph 6mo ago
    heres a bit of a fringe view, from me, and others. governments need influence, and yellow the truth,so as to manage the overall situation, thats a first assumption. now we see a lot of actions that in the end seemlike footgunning, basically derailing the foundations of civilization. perhaps this is not megalomania, greed, or sickness. perhaps, as is often portrayed in popular scifi, we are all doomed to face a terrible challange, there are only few very closed mouth individuals that absolutely know. [remember this is a fringe conspiracy hypothesis] we are being distracted and kept on the dark about impending catastrophe,so as to stave off absolute chaos,little hope of influencing anyone except by overwhelming show of force. perhaps "they" know its a matter of years, not decades until we experience that thing that suddenly, seemingly cyclically clears the board and the whole assembly begins again from square 2,or 3,not quite square one. [Re fringe;conspiracy] "they" are behaving in an all bets are off manner, keeping thier hand hidden, playing an endgame rather than making a benign effort.
  - root_axis 6mo ago
    That's just the political division. Scientists and academic types tend to lean left, the republicans are a right leaning party so they oppose them. It's not even a Trump thing, it's been like this for decades, though Trump is obviously more aggressive than previous Republican leaders.
epistasis 6mo ago
This is a very common thing for corrupt governments. No rules are clear, so that those at the top can dictate whatever they want whenever they want. Which means that the only safe route is to always be on very very good terms with leadership. Very sad to see the US fall away from the rule of law, into kleptocracy. See also the way that grants are now being distributed at NCI and NSF. Only very large grants for many many years, to reward those who are in the favored status, and kill those who are disfavored. Decision making is random and capricious, just be sure to bribe those at the top with whatever favors you can.
- nickff 6mo ago
  This is also very foreseeable for an administrative state, and this slippery slope has been predicted for over a century. Rule by administrators (or bureaucrats) is just as opaque/unaccountable/corrupt, and as the extent of their power grew, it was inevitable that the political leadership would exploit the power (as has already happened many times before). It seems like nobody (at least on the liberal end of the spectrum) really cared about the arbitrary use of power when it was mostly left-liberals making the choices. The way to fix this is to reduce the power of the administrative state, not to just complain about Trump, but I have little hope of a real solution.
  - mothballed 6mo ago
    NCI and NSF recipients getting a taste of what EPA, DEA and ATF was doing to the plebs all along with random "interpretations" and bad-faith presentations of them to judge and jury. Maybe that whole "the academics and bureaucrats are so smart we totally need to cede power from congress to the executive" wasn't such a bright idea after all. Of course, it's totally lost on the academic-bureaucratic class that the anti-intellectuals wouldn't hesitate to cut off their nose to spite their face by electing a president that would turn around and surprise pikachu the academics with the very machine they had helped build. Now that academics are losing their grips within the bureaucratic apparatus, suddenly they are deciding to rethink their strategy -- but it's not a coming to Jesus moment, but rather just a reactionary response.
gwbas1c 6mo ago
See my top-level comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48238900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48238900
somenameforme 6mo ago
The article mentions, oddly enough at literally the very bottom, that one of the main laws being used is the 'Wolf Amendment' [1], passed in 2011. It's what prevented Chinese from working on the ISS and arguably is why China now has its own space station. It's an extremely dumb law that's been passed and reauthorized repeatedly by every single administration and Congress since Obama who it was passed under. Just quoting Wiki since it's quite succinct and accurate on this: "[The Wolf Amendment] prohibits the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from using government funds to engage in direct, bilateral cooperation with the Chinese government and China-affiliated organizations from its activities without explicit authorization from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Congress." For another consequence of this law, when China relatively recently carried out a sample return from the Moon, they sought to share the resultant rocks/material with countries worldwide, much like NASA did in the 60s. Except Americans couldn't accept them, at least not without jumping through a million hoops first, due to this law. It's one of the ever more frequent 'I'm going to punch myself in the face because I don't like you' acts by governments. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment
- ajross 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - casey2 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - ajross 5mo ago
      The space station thing is a side quest that has nothing to do with the linked article. I'll happily concede the point, even though it seems pretty questionable to me. It's still not remotely true that (sigh) "Obummer" was using the law to threaten grants and censor research. Trump did that. Only Trump did that. And that's a whole lot worse than wasted effort on a dumb space station.
      - 5mo ago
rapiz 6mo ago
US seems to be learning from China very quick. Congrats.
- Danox 6mo ago
  The USA isn’t learning from China. The USA is learning from Russia…
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
> They're just randomly flagging What is the purported legal authority they’re acting under? Some of the housekeeping in the next years will involve pulling those statutes.
shevy-java 6mo ago
There is a rationale: it is an ideology that Trump uses here. It is very similar to the 1930s, just adapted to a more "modern" era, with entertainment (if people manage to not die due to boredom, watching epic movies such as Melania ...). Did people already forget a certain billionaire raising his right arm? They are trolling on top of pillaging the taxpayers here.
e40 5mo ago
Sounds like they took a page from Google on how to close accounts without warning or explanation.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

mnky9800n 6mo ago

I wonder when the trump administration will ever decide if it wants to Be isolationist or global imperialist.

jolmg 6mo ago
They're not mutually exclusive
- bilbo0s 6mo ago
  This. The question is what serves their interests at the time? Whatever serves their interests at a given time, well, that’s what they believe at that time. That will have no bearing on what they believe in the future.
- morkalork 6mo ago
  The scary this is what that looks like in practice
unethical_ban 6mo ago
It's a decent bet that they are truly foolish. I've said this before. If the administration isn't acting as agents of a hostile nation trying to destroy America from within and scuttle its global leadership, they're doing a great job acting like it. Short of them just turning a nuke on a large city, I can't think of better ways to harm America without fomenting an actual uprising than what they're doing to us today.
jshier 6mo ago
Autarky requires imperialism to grab the resources needed to be fully isolationist. So it's really both, until they hit the tipping point to become fully isolated. But this is something else. This is just the anti-science ignorentsia coming together with the xenophobic white supremacists to screw America. They say Trump can't bring people together, but he's done a great job of uniting all the worst people in the country.
loudmax 6mo ago
Being isolationist or global imperialist implies articulating different strategies and values. This is an administration that has neither of those.

kahrl 6mo ago

Well, we can't have have the non indoctrinated taking away our freedom. USA USA USA.

Avicebron 6mo ago

It's interesting after reading briefly about this, but I think previously NIH funding was more permissive to directly awarding funds to foreign nationals/groups. But interestingly enough, China doesn't do the same for say foreign researchers trying to collaborate with chinese researchers. (Unless you already live there etc etc). So it was indeed asymmetrical.

neuronexmachina 6mo ago
Do you have a reference for that? At least based on this, it seems like China's trying to increase collaboration and funding for joint research projects with non-Chinese researchers: * https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/english/site_1/international/D2/2018/01-16/78.html https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/english/site_1/international/D2/2018... * https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260107-overseas-scholars-drawn-to-china-s-scientific-clout-funding https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260107-overseas-scho...

petcat 6mo ago

The article says that these restrictions on research with a "foreign component" have been in place since at least 2003 but have only recently been clarified to include the researchers themselves. It's actually more surprising to me that NIH and NASA research co-authored by non-Americans was supposedly not requiring scrutiny under the "foreign component" rules before this.

matthewdgreen 6mo ago
Many graduate students, faculty and post-docs are foreign citizens. So banning them from conducting research could potentially shut down big research projects. It is not surprising to me that the NIH and other funding agencies didn't want to do this. (It is also unsurprising to me that the current administration would have few qualms about disrupting research: we know they don't care, ask the cancer studies that had to be saved with private Foundation funding last year.) Before you start throwing disruptive rules at projects, you generally want to know that there is a critical security concern for that specific work. Most research just gets published a few months later, so foreign interests can just read it in a journal and download the dataset.
- wyldberry 6mo ago
  I don't have great sources on hand, this is just coming from a career situated in or adjacent to protecting research and IP from espionage. As the national labs and prime defense contractors got exceptional at defending their networks, this pushed state actors into attempting espionage at the university level. It's a lot easier to get access to underpaid graduate students, fresh post-docs, etc who are doing the heavy researching lift day-to-day work. You have way more tools in your HUMINT arsenal with this population. Sometimes research has natsec implications even though it is not in pre-class or classified status. A famous example of this is how the US created it's stealth technology initially. "The foundation for a science-based approach to the development of stealth aircraft was laid by Petr Ufimtsev, a Soviet physicist. In 1962, Sovietskoye Radio publishing house issued his book Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction that described the mathematical rationale for the development of stealth vehicles. In the USSR, these ideas did not go any further, however, the Americans were very enthusiastic about them. Ufimtsev’s physical theory of diffraction has become, they say, the cornerstone of a breakthrough in the stealth technology. In the 1970s, the work was started in the USA on the basis of this knowledge as a result of which breakthrough stealth aircraft − Lockheed F-117 fighter and Northrop B-2 strategic bomber – have been produced." https://rostec.ru/en/media/news/visible-invisible-stealth-technology-history/#middle https://rostec.ru/en/media/news/visible-invisible-stealth-te...

kittikitti 6mo ago

I knew that most research had ties to government funding but it was only recently that I realized the scale of it. Along with the pullback of any government funding remotely resembling DEI, policies like the one described in the article wouldn't decimate research from my previous understanding. In terms of influence, it's now clear to me that the government controls anywhere between 75 to 99% of academic research. I feel foolish for believing all the details in subsequent papers from the research about why their work is necessary or important. It turns out, all of it is because the government requested it and really nothing else.

convolvatron 6mo ago
that's not entirely true, it is to some degree. by convention there have been a few buffer layers between actual grant allocation and naked politics. funding gets allocated to someplace like NSF, NIH, ONR or DARPA. Those organizations have directorates or area concentrations. Each directorate has a program manager (the terms vary based on org) who puts out request for proposals (grant applications). The PMs are generally chosen from the sciences, and are responsible for authoring RFPs that meet strategic goals, and negotiate with the PIs (grant recipients) about terms and sizes and such. So there are really two political realms, above the funding agency, and underneath, and its entire function is reconcile those worlds in a pretty vague way with a certain amount of autonomy given to the PM. This isn't 100% great, but if you have good PM, some good science does get funding. While this seems like a lot of machinery, if you short circuit all of it, and have the presidents direct flunkies make funding decisions, that basically means that almost no real science gets done.
bo1024 6mo ago
Your current understanding also seems a bit warped. The US government provides the source of a lot of research funding but historically exerts little "control". Generally grant applications are evaluated by panels of researchers who don't work for the federal government. Also, this government funding supports fundamental innovations that private companies wouldn't fund because it's too general and too far from monetizable. But after those breakthroughs happen funded by public research, private industry benefits enormously. This includes most health and medical advances and the science underlying most technological advances. So government funding doesn't conflict with the work being necessary or important, on the contrary, it is possibly more important long-term. Disclaimer? The government funds some of my research.

WaitWaitWha 6mo ago

Can we take a step back and review the article and the underlying information? I am very much against any arbitrary and often unnecessary government interference. I also publish. Lot's of weasel words. This is not unprecedented. Restrictions tied to foreign collaboration are not new, NIH has done this as far back as 2018 if I recall. Yes, foreign research restrictions have escalated recently. We have no official statement for either agencies. Collaborating on sensitive or classified material with identified FOCI coauthors is and always have been highly scrutinized activity. Title 32 CFR 117.11 is old. It goes back as far as DoD 5220.22-M in the '90s. NISPM-33 Office of Science and Technology Policy efforts have been around since 2018 too or so (i am sooo old :/). This appears to be a continuation of escalation of research-security, rather than a wholly unprecedented break from prior policy.

SubiculumCode 6mo ago

"In response to Inside Higher Ed’s questions about Science’s reporting, an NIH spokesperson emailed a statement Thursday that referenced just one set of grant programs: the Institutional Development Award (IDeA). NIH’s website says the awards go to Puerto Rico and 23 states that “historically have had low levels of NIH funding." "The recent update to IDeA grantees was a clarification of longstanding policy, not a new directive,” the spokesperson said. “IDeA program funding has always been restricted to U.S.-based institutions and entities, with foreign institutions, non-domestic components of U.S. organizations, and all foreign components explicitly prohibited. This reflects Congress’s intent that IDeA funds be used exclusively for research capacity building within the United States—and specifically within eligible IDeA states and territories. NIH’s statement didn’t mention any other grant programs or answer multiple written questions.” [1] [1] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/05/22/report-nih-nasa-restrict-co-authoring-foreign-scientists https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/05/22/r...

SubiculumCode 6mo ago
I do not know yet if this was NIH tricky wording to insidehighered.com, or if it is really restricted to this one small program. edit: that said, from my experience, and some reporting, foreign contracts (e.g. a foreign collaborating researcher) have been regularly denied in the new NIH.
gcanyon 6mo ago
> a clarification of longstanding policy, not a new directive I call BS.

josefritzishere 6mo ago

Xenophobia makes for poor science.

gwbas1c 6mo ago

This happens when a country is preparing to go to war. It's what happened with nuclear research around the start of the Manhattan project.

dghlsakjg 6mo ago
The US is currently at war by all definitions except a declaration of war.
BeetleB 6mo ago
So, medical research (NIH grants) is in preparation for going to war? Is the US planning on using biological agents?
- dlahoda 5mo ago
  Search story of Eco Health Alliance. It tells Usa based org got grant to research Coronaviruses. And outsourced research to China Wuhan.
  - antonvs 5mo ago
    > It tells Usa based org got grant to research Coronaviruses. Yes, because coronaviruses are one of the largest and most common family of viruses, that cause everything from the common cold to SARS and MERS. Researching coronaviruses was important long before COVID-19. Educating yourself is a good antidote to irrational conspiracy theories.

sega_sai 6mo ago

The country elects an autocrat who fires experts and puts stooges in positions of power. Surprise-surprise that leads to idiotic policies, some of them mimicking the best hits of Soviet Union.

jsrcout 6mo ago
Oh, absolutely. For instance I never thought Lysenkoism would happen again, but the conditions are ripe for it.

gcanyon 6mo ago

If it was their actual goal to destroy the US leadership role in research worldwide, they couldn't do more than they are.

Danox 6mo ago
Unfortunately, we are seeing the decline of the USA. The rest of the world is going to move on without us.
- _kulang 6mo ago
  I think we’ve seen the decline of the USA and have already moved on without them. Not everything important is US-centric and about AI and oil
  - hedora 5mo ago
    The US is way behind on AI from a perf/dollar perspective and is rapidly driving the rest of the world off oil by disrupting supply chains. I think we’ll see an even bigger economic reckoning in 2027-28, and then the pendulum will swing back. The Great Depression and Hoovervilles paved the way for the New Deal. Trump’s corruption and economic policies are likely going to be even more disastrous than that. Hopefully we can pick up the pieces quickly and without the benefit of World Wars.
andix 6mo ago
Why would you assume this isn't their goal?
- gcanyon 5mo ago
  Yikes Hope? Wishful thinking?
  - andix 5mo ago
    There are many historic examples of "dumbing down" a country by their government. I've tried to list some here, but got flagged. Ask your favorite Chatbot to assemble one. A lot of them share similarities with the current situation in the US. This is not happening by accident.

b00ty4breakfast 6mo ago

I can't help but think that there is a deliberate effort to remove the US from it's position in the global geopolitical arena. And not merely as a by-product of policy decisions but specifically to damage the American reputation.

andix 6mo ago
[flagged]
conception 6mo ago
There is. You can read it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
- daveguy 6mo ago
  Dumpty's loyalty is with whoever will give him the most money and power as a person. Always has been.
  - Frost1x 6mo ago
    Maybe money but clearly not power. The American voting population gave him more power than pretty much anyone in many senses of the word “power,” yet he’s clearly not loyal to the American voting population. So I think money or wealth is the bigger weight here.
    - RealityVoid 6mo ago
      Or he's just... ya'know... stupid.
    - killerstorm 6mo ago
      The American voting population was manipulated to give him power. The ones which helped with manipulation are effectively in control. Or do you think all the wedge issues organically crystallized in voters' minds?..

airport_barfly 6mo ago

What's really insidious is that they're not allowing these papers to be included in progress reports. > After removing the 16 papers, “I said, well, Jesus, we’re not reporting anything. It’s very frustrating,” Drummond says. “I don’t know how they’re going to evaluate our productivity.” This creates bad data where teams look less productive than they actually are. Next year, they'll use that as an excuse to cut funding.

amanaplanacanal 6mo ago

Right up there with the stupidity of the Genesis mission. Good video from Angela Collier: https://youtu.be/p6Ejmhwb8Sc?si=ovsv05uRHYP2ZrPC https://youtu.be/p6Ejmhwb8Sc?si=ovsv05uRHYP2ZrPC

charcircuit 6mo ago

Foreigners are not entitled to my tax dollars. They can find other ways to fund their work.

ranguna 6mo ago
I don't think that's how it works, mate.
- charcircuit 6mo ago
  We fought a whole war over not sending our taxes to foreigners (Britain). A foreign nation being entitled to your tax money is what happens when that foreign nation has conquered you.
  - ranguna 5mo ago
    Nops, I still think your missing the mark here
  - kahrl 5mo ago
    DERKA DERKA
mkw5053 5mo ago
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kahrl 5mo ago
THEY DERKIN OUR DERBS!!!!!

class4behavior 6mo ago

> “The easy route for us would be just to cut off foreign involvement entirely and not include foreign authors. And that to us is a concession to some form of xenophobia.” I mean, what else so you expect if you elect a majority of actual fascists? A fascist discriminates on every front imaginable. Things haven't become much worse simply because of the filibuster.

Sparkyte 6mo ago

This is a reasonable take with possibilities of introducing ways to expedite the verification of researchers and contributors. Foreign or not. The problem with scientific papers is that there is an exploitive macro economy of how many one can publish without sold evidence or research attached to the paper itself.

hedora 5mo ago
So, you’re saying the solution to papers not being adequately peer reviewed (which is a strong claim that I disagree with) is to use political ideology tests to let the current administration arbitrarily decide who is allowed to publish?
- Sparkyte 5mo ago
  I am actually not for the current administration. However having legal and regulatory standards on scientific papers is essential. I just wish it was established under a different administration so it could establish pathways to ensure international collaboration.

linuxhansl 6mo ago

Are we purposefully dumbing down the country now? Sure, some things are trade-secrets or national security issues or whatnot, but those are already not shared. More than militarily the US has always led with soft-power (science, culture, etc). We are throwing all this soft-power away. Perhaps there is a legitimate reason, but like so many things in this administration this feels like a knee-jerk reaction to... Something.

andix 6mo ago
> Are we purposefully dumbing down the country now? Yes.
deleted 5mo ago
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elzbardico 6mo ago

Most right-wing politicians behind this kind of thing have no idea how much foreign students are essential for american scientific and technological leadership. If they are so hell bent on keeping the "Empire at all costs", on keeping America as a hegemon, brain-draining their adversaries is an excellent strategy. Any chinese materials sciences specialist working on hypersonic missiles in America is on one less chinese guy doing the same in China.

golem14 6mo ago

One has no rules Is not precise One rarely acts The same way twice One spurns no device Practicing the art of the possible One always picks The easy fight One praises fools One smothers light One shifts left to right It's part of the art of the possible ... One always claims Mistakes were planned When risk is slight One takes one's stand With much sleight of hand Politics—the art of the possible - Evita

shevy-java 6mo ago

A certain orange guy wants to drag everything down to his level: dumbness. Except when it comes to corruption, then he is truly king.

whatever1 5mo ago

If LLMs really can act as invetors why US should export its research for free? The return will be 0. Today the rationale for open research is that openness accelerates it. What if you just need more electricity and silicon to accelerate it?

h4kunamata 5mo ago

Ahh the USA, always thinking they are the top in command and yet, its citizen cannot afford to get sick. President after President, it goes from bad to worse. A potato would know to never mess up with researches, the more you limit, the less access and knowledge you have access to.

ratmeadow 5mo ago
They just know their constitutional rights as law abiding american citizens to die from easily preventable illness they can't afford treatment for!

g42gregory 5mo ago

We were told by some very brilliant people (Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and to a lesser extent Demis Hassabis), that AI will shortly automate much of Research and we won't need that many researchers anymore. Therefore, these personnel restrictions shouldn't matter, right?

tim333 5mo ago
I think they are hoping for a speedup more than less researchers.
- g42gregory 5mo ago
  No, they were pretty clear that researchers will get replaced. By the AGI in the year no other than 2026.

3vo-ai 5mo ago

[flagged]

ascotan 5mo ago

Love reading all the TDS comments about Americans are the new Nazis and Orange Man is bad. However, this article isn't very good: NIH has publish guidance: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-155.html https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-1... It seems like the intent here is to prevent "subawards" going to foreign linked entities where the USG can't track it. The NIH is introducing a new linked award system where the foreign entity receives their own independent grant number and that primary on the application must be a US entity. This introduces new activity codes (PF5 regular grant and UF5 cooperative agreement) where upon granting the new money the foreign entity will receive their own RF2 grant or UL2 grant (based on the original grant type). Under the old system a grant to a US institution (like a university) could be doled out to foreigner institutions as subawards without the USG seeing where the money was going. This is a violation of FFATA and the USG wants to track these dollars because US universities are not reporting it. Additionally the USG has grown increasing suspicious of certain countries (think russia, china) that are getting subawards that are effectively transferring US IP to these entities via pliant US individuals at an institution. This forces the PI to get a linked award and pull these folks out of the shadows where they are now identified and where the USG can run a background check on them. This also deals with university outsourcing where an institution can get a grant and then simply pass the money off (mostly entirely) to a foreign entity where the US university became essentially a shadow distribution vehicle. Under the new rules to do this the PI must show that but funnel funds to a foreign institution that institution must offer something not readily available in the US. Once a foreign funded entity has received money in this way and then violates policy, or breached security it falls on the university to police their grants (which mostly they can't do effectively). So the USG wants to cut out the middleman and for the foreign entity to become a direct recipient of the grant making them legal liable to the USG for all the terms and conditions. If you violate the grant the NIH can sanction them directly without going through the university.

AmazingEveryDay 5mo ago
Sometimes it is a lot to wallow through the comments here, to find the few insightful ones. Thanks!

mik09 5mo ago

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