Droegemeier: Research funding challenges a needed “wake-up call” for institutions

The second Trump administration has made unprecedented cuts to federal spending on scientific research, leading some to fear for the future of science in the United States.

“The thing that doesn’t work, though, when you think about the future of science in this country—the future of research—is throwing money at the problem,” former presidential science advisor Kelvin Droegemeier told an audience of science writers in Chicago on Nov. 9. 

Droegemeier, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, served as science advisor during the first Trump administration. He believes academic institutions bear some of the responsibility for the problems facing U.S. science. 

“Higher education and research has become much more of a private good versus a public good. There’s another dimension of higher ed that we’ve kind of lost, and that is to become an engaged citizen in a democratic society and be contributing in ways other than just your own scholarly research areas,” Droegemeier said, delivering a keynote address that was part of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing’s New Horizons in Science briefing at the ScienceWriters2025 conference.

Droegemeier said he would like to see “more flexibility and less prescription” in research funding, an alternative to the current practice of awarding grants to individual investigators and centers that conduct high-dollar research. 

CASW sat down with Droegemeier after his address. This Q&A has been edited for length.

EC: Where would the funding for “bold ideas,” as you called it in your keynote, come from?

KD: We’ve got to be comfortable with spending a lot of money on something and have it not work, because if you only fund the things that you’re pretty sure are going to work, then that’s not a bold idea. And that’s kind of a dangerous place to be, because if you do that all the time, then people are going to stop thinking big, right?

EC: Some say America has created new technologies, then lost leadership. How would you respond?

KD: That is a big challenge. We’ve created so many requirements [for federally funded research] in the regulatory environment. Every time that a foreign country, say, steals technology or something like that, we react by trying to create a policy or preventative. And so China, for example, doesn’t have to do much other than just scare us, and we react.

And this is why this whole research security thing is so complicated, because how far do you go? It’s kind of like the tax code. It just keeps growing and growing and growing. Nothing ever goes away, and that’s kind of what’s happened to the regulatory environment.

Presentation slides courtesy of Kelvin Droegemeier

EC: In your keynote, you said the “substrate of what’s driving a lot of this stuff” – research funding discussions – “it’s not saving money so much, it’s really about some of these other things.” Can you elaborate?

KD: I think we’ve benefited by having some “forcing functions” that are kind of a wake-up call. And I think we in higher ed, in particular, have not owned up to some of the issues that are problematic for us. Some of these foundational issues of the research enterprise, of values and stuff, we need to really go back to those values and say, “Are we really adhering to those values?”

In research, we do. But I’m talking about things like, on our campuses, welcoming speakers from anywhere. Somebody wants to start a chapter of Turning Point USA, and a student group says, “No, we’re not going to allow that.” Really? I thought higher ed was about all points of view, right? And we’ve gotten away from that. We absolutely have. And I think it’s time we own up. Some of the things that are happening now, it’s a wake-up call, and I think it’s good. We shouldn’t have waited this long for it.

EC: You also said that the social compact built upon trust “is under serious stress.” What’s happened?

KD: What sometimes will really damage trust is when somebody says one thing and does another. A lot of times, in society, we’ll see things, “Oh, yeah, we’re all over this, yeah, we’re all about this.” And you look at the actions, and they’re completely opposite.

And you end up forming a horrible opinion of that because, “How can you trust somebody that says one thing and does completely the opposite?” I’m not talking about people necessarily, but institutions. The values that are fundamental, deep inside you, and then the actions are out here, there’s a total disconnect. That’s the key thing.