Advocates for scientific research say they’re energized by the results of the midterm elections, and they plan to encourage a Democratically led Congress to restore federal research grants.
Scott Delaney was an epidemiologist at Harvard before the Trump administration terminated his grant funding. He now runs the organization Grant Witness, which tracks federal grant activity.
He said the shift in power in Washington DC brings a new chance to restore science funding. Although the Trump administration still has “wide latitude to make or terminate grants,” the results of the midterms have reenergized advocacy networks.
“The energy, I think, to fight back is real. It’s palpable, and it’s incredibly important, and will be so for at least the next two years,” he said. “I think as a result of the election, we’ll see a couple of tangible opportunities that really may have the capacity to bring some funding back to science that has been lost.”
He says while the Trump administration’s grant terminations have decimated research programs across the country, they have disproportionately impacted research in Massachusetts.
“There’s a number of scientists at universities, both public and private in Massachusetts, that can no longer work as they did,” Delaney said. “So they either have to pivot to different jobs or they leave the industry altogether. And then, importantly, this has impacted private companies as well. Biotech firms don’t have the access to the basic science research that they had previously.”
The grant terminations have been the subject of lawsuitsand many were restored after a federal judge ordered the research to be funded again.
Delaney says in Massachusetts, more than 200 grants totaling more than $500 million were never restored. In addition, he says, the Trump administration has drastically cut the number of new research grants it now awards and eliminated funding for scientific topics the administration doesn’t favor, like issues of diversity.
One thing he wants to see is the impeachment of Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr.
“There were congresspeople who had filed articles of impeachment against him almost a year ago, and that effort will absolutely restart,” Delaney said. “This is important and it’s not political. RFK has, in a range of different ways, simply failed to do his job, failed his oath, and failed to conduct himself in the office in ways that are required by any secretary that’s approved by the Senate… failing to faithfully execute the law effectively. “
As health secretary, Delaney contends that Kennedy has made unlawful changes to national health policy, halted public engagement, and damaged agencies under his control with widespread layoffs.
Delaney also believes Democrats should address a refusal by the federal Office of Management and Budget over the last two years to use money that Congress appropriated for research.
“Congress is asking — is telling, is demanding, is requiring — that the Trump administration fully support scientific research at levels that it did at least the last two years,” Delaney said. “The problem has been that the Trump administration, and especially OMB, has simply refused to do what Congress is requiring them to do.”
An urge to ‘set the bar high’
Colette Delawalla founded the advocacy group Stand Up for Science in 2025. She was writing her dissertation grant application to the NIH when a list of terms came out that the NIH was using to screen out projects.
“And so I was like, ‘Well, hell no, I’m not taking out the word ‘woman.’ Are you kidding me?’” Delawalla remembers thinking.
Delawalla planned what she thought would be an individual event to protest what was happening with federal research funding.
“It turned into 170 events all over the world,” she said. “Totally peaceful. We had tens of thousands of people coming out.”
She’s now the founder and CEO of Stand Up For Science, a nonprofit organization with 30 employees, affiliated NGOs out of Switzerland and Canada, and a superPAC that worked to flip seats in this midterm election.
Now, she says, they want to see results.
“I don’t think we can ask for too much,” Delawalla said. “And I think that we should set the bar really, really high. We helped deliver — I mean, we being we, the people of the United States of America — helped deliver this resounding rejection of MAGA America and everything that comes with that. And it is now our job to hold our elected officials accountable to what we voted them into office to do. And that includes funding science. It includes restoring the civil service. It includes impeaching members of the cabinet who have actively done illegal things that are impeachable offenses.”
Despite Trump’s ability to veto spending bills, Delawalla said Congress should keep sending him legislation to support science.
“So if that means that Democrats are sending across the ‘End Cancer in Women Act’ and the ‘End Diabetes in Children Act’ and the ‘Save Sudden Infant Death Prevention Programs Act,’ like every single day across the president’s desk, and he vetoes every last one of those, then there needs to be a news cycle about every time he vetoes the ‘Save the Children and Babies Act.’” she said. ”So I actually think that there is an enormous amount that this Congress can and should be doing, and we are going to hold their feet to the fire.”
Source: www.wgbh.org
