Together with several colleagues, he wrote an article about the effects of climate change on the health of construction workers, says Lex Burdorf, a professor of determinants of population health at Erasmus University Rotterdam. It was supposed to be published in a scientific journal in the United States, but the journal rejected it at the last minute. The only – vague – reason they would give was ‘specific circumstances’.

Burdorf: ‘We strongly suspect that it’s because Donald Trump said he doesn’t want any more research into climate change.’ Meanwhile, the journal appears to have been shut down.

Visible

Donald Trump has only been the president of the United States for a few months, but the consequences of his second term are visible everywhere in academia. Trump is cutting science funding, torpedoing climate research, banning words such as ‘diversity’ and ‘gender’, and deporting international students and researchers he doesn’t like. It’s a full-frontal attack on academic freedom.

In Burdorf’s field, the new administration is leading to self-censorship among academics, he says. ‘I’m involved in research into health-related differences between men and women, but you can’t say that in the US anymore. They now talk about “targeted medicine” or “personalised medicine”. That’s what’s happening. That’s just bizarre.’

I don’t feel at home in a country where these bizarre things happen

He’s even started watching his words in his emails to his colleagues at American universities, because you never know where those emails might end up. Hundreds of academics over there are losing their jobs, and he doesn’t want to get the ones who are left into trouble.

He’s also realised that he’s turning away from the US. ‘We are less inclined to invite Americans to participate in new research projects because that could cause problems’, says Burdorf. ‘What’s more, I have decided not to go to the United States for at least the next two years. I don’t think I’d feel at home in a country where these bizarre things are happening.’

Survey

This is just one example of how the new course of the American government is being felt even in the Netherlands. But there’s more. Dutch researchers are also losing American funding or seeing years of collaboration go down the drain. Data is at risk of disappearing or is already inaccessible. Conferences have been postponed or cancelled.

Together with NU.nl and the Investico platform, the Higher Education Press Agency (HOP) distributed a survey, which was completed by more than two hundred researchers across twelve universities. A third of respondents say they have been directly affected by Trump’s policies.

In addition to frequently mentioned fields such as climate science and gender studies, the survey shows that history, political science, palaeontology and even computer science are also being affected. In some cases, researchers are feeling the pinch financially: twenty-two respondents have seen promised funds be interrupted or withdrawn.

A queer person of colour

Manon Portos Minetti (they/them), a historian and television producer, is conducting PhD research in Leiden on the white, right-wing, evangelical media landscape in the US, analysing how conspiracy theories in that circle contributed to the re-election of Donald Trump and the ideal of a ‘pure’ white America.

Portos Minetti would like to do archival research and spend some time in the US as a visiting scholar. ‘But given my subject matter, people have told me not to even try. Trump only wants you to highlight the positive side of American history, and I’m doing the opposite.’

This affects them not only professionally, but also personally: as a queer person of colour with a Uruguayan background, Portos Minetti does not feel safe in the United States. They do not even know if they would be allowed to enter the country, so they are not going to try.

Astronomy

Gender, racism, climate change, diversity… Research into such topics is an obvious target for Donald Trump’s regime. But even seemingly neutral disciplines such as astronomy are feeling the effects. 

They’re afraid to talk about it for fear of reprisals

‘It’s a tragedy’, says Simon Portegies Zwart, a professor of astronomy in Leiden. ‘I’m in Zoom calls with American colleagues every day, but they they’re afraid to talk about it for fear of reprisals. You never know who’s listening. They’re going from a reasonably functioning democracy to the China of the 1970s.’

US space agency NASA has departments for atmospheric and oceanic science that cover climate change, so one might understand why Trump is targeting them, but few people can fathom why astronomy and space travel are being targeted as well. ‘The only thing I can think of’, says Portegies Zwart, ‘is that science produces articulate people who think about the world. They are not Trump’s friends. This seems to be mainly motivated by resentment.’

Portegies Zwart perceives the same sentiment in the Netherlands and believes that the budget cuts are a sign of that. ‘The current political climate is hostile to science’, he says. ‘I don’t understand how this happened: the people in those parties are usually highly educated, but they seem to have developed a certain resistance to nuance and facts.’

That’s another result of the survey: few respondents have much confidence in the government. They’d love to see the government stand up and defend academia and speak out against the developments in the US. But the Schoof cabinet prefers to avoid antagonising the United States. 

Other European countries appear to be more proactive. Thirteen European ministers of education and science (including those from France and Germany) recently sent a letter to Ekaterina Zaharieva, the European Commissioner for Research and Innovation. Although they do not mention the US, they call for the protection of scientific freedom, saying that the European Union should welcome talented researchers from abroad who are suffering from political interference and brutal budget cuts.

These developments are worrisome and are happening very quickly

The letter did not fall on deaf ears at the European Commission. President Ursula von der Leyen has since announced half a billion euros in additional investments to attract academics to Europe. She also wants to enshrine academic freedom in European legislation.

But Education minister Eppo Bruins did not sign the letter. He refused ‘because it contains several proposals that go beyond the minister’s portfolio’, his spokesperson says. However, he emphasised that Bruins endorses the importance of academic freedom and attracting talented academics. 

What now?

All the interviews reveal that researchers are often unsure who to turn to when they need advice about matters like travelling abroad, losing funding, or securing data.

Most universities do provide general advice. For example, they urge their staff not to fill out any questionnaires the US sends them about their research. Two researchers from Wageningen University recently received such a survey by email, which caused quite a stir. 

Researchers can also turn to policy advisers, managers, and knowledge security specialists, among others. In Rotterdam, there is a special contact person for students and researchers looking to travel to the US. The UG has a hotline as well. The university has also called for securing public data sources that are important for research. Anyone with questions can contact the university’s Digital Competence Centre.

However, inquiries at universities reveal that they don’t always have a complete overview of the problems their employees are facing. ‘These developments are worrisome and happening very quickly’, says a spokesperson for the University of Amsterdam. ‘The impact is enormous, but we do not have the final, full scope of it yet.’

Maastricht University even believes that it is not experiencing any ‘direct consequences’. Nevertheless, three academics from that university stated in our survey that funding has been withdrawn from their studies, American colleagues are no longer allowed to participate in their research, and access to some scientific information is disappearing.

Save as…

Leiden astronomer Portegies Zwart: ‘I’m concerned about American databases of which no copies exist anywhere else in the world. These are large files; you can’t just buy a 10-terabyte hard drive and download them in an evening. You’d probably need an entire data centre.’ 

The danger is real. At the end of April, physical oceanographer Sjoerd Groeskamp, with the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), received a disturbing email from American ocean research centre NOAA. Someone warned him that a significant number of databases were going to be taken out of service. 

‘My time at NOAA is up’, the email said, ‘and so I want to encourage my academic friends around the world to save this data for the future.’ Groeskamp would love to secure the data, but he feels like his efforts are in vain: there is no coordinated way to do this.

SURF

But in fact, measures are being taken. SURF, the ICT organisation for education and research, is busy securing various databases. So far, 100 terabytes of data have been retrieved.

While it may sound outdated, the data is stored on tapes. These can be stored on shelves and don’t need cooling, which saves a lot of energy. Since Trump’s inauguration, the tapes have been running nonstop.

I’m concerned about American databases of which no copies exist

The nature of the data is confidential. ‘We don’t want to give Trump any ideas’, says innovation manager Magchiel Bijsterbosch. ‘If he knows what we’re storing, he might try to delete it even faster.’ SURF is feeling the urgency: usually, a request for data storage can be approved in twenty-four hours.

Coordinate 

Marileen Dogterom, president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), suggests that European countries should coordinate. ‘Otherwise, we’ll end up with lots of identical copies and we might forget other things. That said, coordination is easier said than done; it has to be done separately for each discipline.’

‘These events are absolutely detrimental to American academia, as well as ours’, says Dogterom. ‘We are closely intertwined and have been working together for decades. I worked in the US for five years myself. American academia is at the top in many fields. European science is also top-notch, no doubt about it, but when we work together, we all get better results.’

What’s the best way to move forward? European data storage is a start, but it has yet to get off the ground. Dogterom: ‘We need to become less dependent on the US. We can do that, but it’s obviously not our first choice. Everyone loses when you stop cooperating, just like in the trade war.’

Other than that, she says that researchers in the Netherlands can do little more than offer moral support to their counterparts in the US. ‘All we can do is encourage them to resist.’ She is pleased that Harvard, for example, is taking a stand, but she is also concerned about the less wealthy universities scattered throughout the country that provide the lion’s share of education: ‘They can’t afford to lose as much money as Harvard.’

‘The events in America show how quickly academic freedom can deteriorate. That is something we want to guard against: we should make sure something like that does not happen in the Netherlands, not even to a small extent.’

This article was written by Bas Belleman (HOP), Emma van Bergeijk (NU.nl), Bijou van der Borst, Machteld Veen en Emiel Woutersen (De Groene Amsterdammer/Investico)

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