Roundtable to consider ‘Science Under Siege’

A roundtable event, “Science Under Siege? Politics, Policy, and Practice After 2024,” will provide a forum for scientists, social scientists and humanities scholars to discuss challenges to research support in response to recent major changes to federal funding.

The panel discussion will be held Feb. 28 at noon in G76, Goldwin Smith Hall.

Deputy Provost Avery August, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor and Professor of Immunology in the College of Veterinary Medicine, and Peter John Loewen, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts and Sciences (A&S), will join a panel of faculty commenters who’ll speak for about five minutes each to start a conversation. The event, which includes lunch, is open to the public; researchers from across the university are encouraged to attend.

Organized by the Department of Science and Technology Studies (A&S), the event will bring together researchers from the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities to share perspectives and brainstorm approaches to recent challenges to research across disciplines.

The past few months have been “really grim” for universities in general and for science researchers in particular, said Suman Seth, the Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow and Marie Underhill Noll Professor of the History of Science and chair of Science and Technology Studies (A&S).

“We have been seeing massive federal cuts in funding and support for science, technology and medicine, as well as other fields,” Seth said. “We’ve seen cuts at the National Institutes of Health — freezes on funding, cutting of workers.”

Limitations have been imposed on the kinds of research people can do, and certain topics are becoming taboo, he said. Language about diversity, equity and inclusion has come under attack, as well as challenges to social sciences and humanities research.

Faculty members giving comments will include Jamila Michener, director of the Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures and associate professor of government (A&S) and public policy in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, an expert in equity and health care; and Sara Pritchard, professor of science and technology studies (A&S), who focuses on environmental sciences.

Rebecca Slayton, associate professor of science and technology studies (A&S), will speak about research on cybersecurity, and sociologist Stephen Hilgartner, the Frederic J. Whiton Professor of Science and Technology Studies (A&S), will talk about the nature of the problem researchers are facing.

Seth said he hopes the roundtable will be the first of many interdisciplinary conversations on the topic of research funding and support.

“It will be a relaxed forum on a non-relaxed topic,” Seth said. “The idea is to hear comments for half an hour, then to open the floor to our community so we can, as a collective, diagnose the short-term problems and the short-term causes, the long-term problems and the long-term causes, and then begin to think collectively about a way forward.”

Read the story in the Cornell Chronicle.