White House report says Trump can usher in a new golden age of science
▼ Summary
– The White House OSTP report “Science: A New Golden Age” argues for major revisions to government-funded science, despite the administration’s proposed funding cuts and attempts to override merit-based grants.
– The report positions itself as a successor to the post-WWII document “Science, the Endless Frontier,” claiming changed circumstances require a new implementation approach.
– It ignores or downplays administration actions harming science, mixes real community-identified issues with political grievances, and injects Silicon Valley perspectives from director Michael Kratsios’s background.
– The report identifies genuine structural problems, such as excessive time researchers spend on grant writing and administration, but offers vague promises of reform without naming specific regulations.
– Due to its lack of internal coherence and mixture of grievances with unsupported ideas, the report is unlikely to have the impact of its predecessor “Science, the Endless Frontier.”
On Tuesday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a report titled “Science: A New Golden Age,” which argues that the current state of scientific research is flawed and that the Trump administration is uniquely positioned to correct it. This claim is striking given that the same administration has repeatedly proposed deep funding cuts to research and sought to empower political appointees to override grants awarded on scientific merit.
The report positions itself as the intellectual heir to “Science, the Endless Frontier,” the landmark 1945 document that made the case for government-funded science after World War II. “Science: A New Golden Age” (SNGA) acknowledges that the original principles remain important but insists that shifting circumstances demand a major overhaul of how the government supports research.
The result is an uneven document. It largely ignores or downplays the administration’s own actions that undermine scientific progress. In some places, it echoes concerns that the scientific community has already identified and debated. In others, it blends political grievances, half-formed ideas, and a distinctly Silicon Valley perspective on innovation,perhaps reflecting the background of OSTP director Michael Kratsios, who previously worked with Peter Thiel. As a result, SNGA is unlikely to have the lasting impact of “Science, the Endless Frontier.”
A lack of internal coherence
The report argues that U. S. government-funded science suffers from structural problems serious enough to require a fundamental transformation of the entire enterprise. (It also makes a positive case, centered on how advances in AI demand a new approach,something we will address later.) Some of the concerns it raises are genuine and have been discussed within the research community for years.
One real issue it highlights is the excessive time researchers spend writing grants and handling administrative tasks, which cuts into their actual research. SNGA promises to fix this by simplifying regulations and streamlining the grant application process. Yet the report is remarkably vague: its authors do not identify a single specific regulation that needs reform.
(Source: Ars Technica)
