White House paper proposes more AI funding, less for universities

6. On a more serious note, I work a lot in the science of science. The report prominently claims that scientific breakthroughs are far rarer than they used to be, and concludes that this somehow the fault of the funding system. Such claims are egregious misrepresentations of the cited research.

Kids fighting congenital heart disease — this is who suffers when HHS stops support for science. Local hospitals like CHOP and Penn rely on stable funding for lifesaving treatments. These billion dollar cuts hit families and researchers right here at home.

A key element of post-WW2 US science policy was recognizing science had become too "big" for individual tinkerers on personal funding, we needed to support institutions, labs, programs. But 'genius tinkerer' is exactly what these bros imagine, part of hating the "professional-managerial class"

The Trump administration wants to try to give funding to individual researchers at universities instead of routing funds through institutions. I read this as an effort to eliminate indirect costs after the administration lost that battle in court last year. Gift link.

Teen pregnancy rates have dropped by more than 1/2 in the last 15 years. This is a good thing. Good, unless you’re part of the Trump admin. They are cutting funding to effective education programs. The ongoing nightmare of an anti-science administration. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/u...

imo the thesis of the OSTP report is a thesis of many science reformists today: Scientific progress is hindered by democratic bodies. The peers are the problem. Whether it's peers in review, or in funding, or just at universities. If the right people were in charge, better science would be funded.

'Scrapping the UK’s science department midway through major reforms to research funding may signal Andy Burnham’s intention to entirely rethink how the Labour government tackles huge challenges facing the university sector.' 1/3

This is somewhat of a no true Scotsman but by highlighting that openness and contention are parts of science I think it underlines the conceptual reasons why funding say openAI is not funding Science

From the folks complaining about improper interpretation of Greek works: ‘federal agencies “should prioritize foundational research in the biological over the life sciences.”’ Biology, derived from Greek, literally means ‘science of life’. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/u...

The premise, style, and even the perceived timing of Michael Kratsios’ 2026 paper, "Science: A New Golden Age," invites a comparison with Vannevar Bush's classic "Science, the Endless Frontier," written in 1945, which established the US science funding doctrine. 🧪

Faramarz S Gard, a researcher at Argentina’s Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica (CNEA), describes the first-hand impact of funding cuts and job losses in the country’s scientific system. 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/letter-fro...

First up. Criticism of peer review and implementation of "agile" new funding organizational structures. 3/9

The problem for right wing regimes has always been that the smartest people (doctors, lawyers, engineers, journalists, writers, artists et al.) tend also to be the most progressive people. Regime supporters think that AI is their final solution to this “problem” because it won’t talk back.

UW–Madison will receive 5 Phase I Genesis Mission awards from the Department of Energy addressing urgent energy, scientific, and engineering challenges with AI and advanced computing. @uwmadison.bsky.social earned more awards than any other public university in the US. news.wisc.edu/5-projects-a...

Trump plans to overhaul federal research by funding individual scientists and artificial intelligence rather than universities, providing him more control over individuals and their results. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...