When the Trump administration released its fiscal-year 2026 budget proposal last May, it sent shock waves through the U.S. scientific community and far beyond. It called for some of the deepest spending cuts to federal science agencies in decades. For researchers in the U.S. and abroad, the message was clear: Longstanding assumptions about stable public investment in science could no longer be taken for granted.

In response, as I wrote in an opinion piece for The Japan Times last July, thousands of researchers, students and supporters gathered across the United States to protest. “One thing is clear,” I wrote, “science can’t stay in its ivory tower anymore.”

© The Japan Times