White House plan shifts research dollars to AI
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- Michael Kratsios, Trump's science adviser, released a report titled "Science: A New Golden Age" this week through the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
- The blueprint calls for shifting hundreds of billions of research dollars from universities to industry, primarily tech and artificial intelligence companies
- The report draws inspiration from "Science — The Endless Frontier," the 1945 manifesto that became the blueprint for the rise of American research universities
- Science advocates have accused the Trump administration for 18 months of shredding the social contract between academic researchers and the federal government that made the U.S. the world's most powerful engine of discovery
- Researchers and advocates expressed concern that other administration actions — including grievances against immigration, universities, and DEI programs — undermine the report's stated goal of improving science
Why it matters: The proposal would redirect the federal research pipeline — historically the engine behind U.S. university-led breakthroughs — toward private tech and AI firms, and scientists quoted in the report note that the administration's simultaneous attacks on immigration, universities, and DEI programs directly contradict the report's stated aim of strengthening American science.
