Unser Heidelberger Honorarprofessor Robert J. Sternberg (Cornell University) hat angesichts der rigorosen Kürzungen im amerikanischen Wissenschaftssystem unter Donald Trump (siehe meinen kürzlich veröffentlichten Blogbeitrag) einen Text verfasst, der als „op-ed“ erscheinen sollte (op-ed: eine Abkürzung für „opposite the editorial page“, also gegenüber der redaktionellen Seite; das ist eine Textform, die häufig in amerikanischen Zeitungen, Zeitschriften und Online-Publikationen zu finden ist und in der Regel die starke und fokussierte Meinung eines Autors zu einem Thema darstellt) und hier mit dem Einverständnis des Verfassers publiziert wird:
„The Scientific Research You Save May Save You
A century ago, in 1925, the average life expectancy in the United States was 57.6 years for men and was 60.6 years for women. Even when I was a kid passing through the single digits in the 1950s, the average was 66.7 for men and 72.8 for women. The #1 killer today is heart disease, but enormous progress has been made with all kinds of medical treatments—cholesterol-lowering drugs, stents, blood thinners, open heart surgery, and even simple remedies like exercise and good diet. In the early 1900s, the main treatments for heart disease were bed rest and treatment, to the extent possible, of symptoms. It is no wonder that, when I was growing up, I mostly saw obituaries written of people in their 60s, and remember thinking that those who made the 70s did really well.
In 2025, the average life span is 81.9 years for men and 86.4 years for women. What changed? Thanks to decades of research in biology, medicine, nutrition, and several other fields of science, we have transformed how we prevent, treat, and cure diseases. GLP-1 research, which has been revolutionary in treating diabetes and other maladies, as well as in helping people lose weight, was done under the auspices of university and hospital settings. Scientific research has given us a new lease on life. Literally. And that applies not only to preventing and curing heart disease, but to cancer, diabetes, stroke, and other medical conditions as well.
All of this life-saving treatment was made possible by research, much of it done in universities or in collaboration with universities. And, of course, universities do research not only on life-saving treatments. Your daily life is shaped by university-based research. If you are reading this op-ed on a computer, you can thank university-based research for that innovation. Do you rely on GPS? That’s largely a product of university research. Yet we are now cutting off the very branch on which we sit. The cutting is ostensibly to save money. But when people who are now being successfully treated for medical conditions start languishing, needing extended and expensive treatment, and soon thereafter dying anyway, that “saved” money will prove to be illusory. And we will have lost the scientists who might have done the research to help them and their fellow citizens.
The United States has been a, arguably, the leader in many fields of scientific research over the years. Our lead in many fields, such as AI and medical research, to name just two, has been unquestioned. Today, world leadership is at least as much about science and technology as it is about a military force. If there is a war, much of it will be fought through technology. We cannot afford to lose our commanding lead.
I am writing as a professor and former university administrator (dean, provost, and president), so I have seen, from diverse perspectives, how scientific research in universities is funded and conducted. Although I have had many government-funded grants and contracts in the past, I currently do not have and have not sought governmental funding, so I have no personal stake in what I write about governmental funding. As I write, scientific research is under threat as it has not been for my lifetime and perhaps for the entire history of the United States. Much scientific research, especially that funded by the National Institutes of Health, is frozen, and that of the Department of Education is being gutted. Some of my colleagues are finding themselves unable to continue their research and spend funds that were already granted and committed to them. So far, many of the reductions has been in what is called indirect costs, or overhead. But direct grants to universities do not provide the electrical costs for refrigeration of microbes or for the lights in the labs, for that matter. They do not provide for the costs of lab space and keeping the space usable, or for providing heating when it is cold. Many experiments in the physical sciences require extreme temperatures, and it is up to indirect costs to provide the wherewithal to achieve and maintain those temperatures. Most of all, indirect costs help keep laboratories safe. You do not want an unsafe lab studying, say, bacteria, viruses, or anything potentially explosive.
You can shrug your shoulders, but when you or a loved one gets sick, you are going to want the best medical care, and if, as a country, we keep cutting funding, you or they will not get it. If we do not support scientific and medical research, young people won’t even want to go into the field. And if you like social media, do you want all the research done by businesses whose main goal is to make money off you—and who view kids as tools for generating revenue?
If you have kids, or if you are planning to pursue any or additional higher education, the quality of education you get will depend in part on colleges and universities having the funds for the scientific research that will benefit you, or in which you or your children might want to participate. And maybe your kids, if you have any, will discover the next great way to save lives. But they will be able to do so only if the funds are there. And right now, those funds are drying up by the day.
What’s needed today to save lives is not catchy slogans or even revolutionary policy ideas: What’s needed is common sense, which has become sadly uncommon. The United States has prided itself on its ability to innovate, but with slash-and-burn cuts to research, we will be forced to sit back and watch while other countries move forward in their scientific and medical research at the speeds we once did. We will become a scientific backwater. Other countries are moving forward in their scientific and medical research. If we move backward, then at least we won’t have to worry so much about immigration. No one will want to come to a country with early 20th-century lifespans and developing-world medical care. And you won’t want to live in such a country either. The scientific research you save today may one day save you and your loved ones.“
Keine Antworten