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The AAAS scientific conference takes place every February somewhere in North America and was once a party to celebrate current and exciting research. I called it “Christmas Eve for a science reporter” ten years ago.
This year’s conference in Phoenix, Arizona, however, was dominated by how American researchers are now trying to find their way in unknown territory.
It started exactly a year ago when Boston hosted the conference. With almost eerie timing, Elon Musk’s so-called rationalization agency Doge announced that same week that government agencies that fund research would be forced to make sweeping cuts and halt thousands of ongoing research projects.
Miles Arnett, a graduate student in the Department of Biotechnology at the University of Pennsylvania, describes it as “a moment of real instability, uncertainty and chaos.”
What are you doing?when your supervisor is fired just as you were accepted as a doctoral student, when scholarships are canceled overnight and entire research areas are closed?
“This is not a transition period. We are in the midst of an inflection point,” AAAS CEO Sudip Parikh said in his opening remarks in Phoenix. “There is no turning back. It is not possible. The damage that has been done is too great. Too much has changed. An entire generation of scientists now have scars that won’t go away. But scars can make us stronger. Scars can become shields to build resilience.”
The desire to advocate and defend research using new methods was also strong at the conference. “We don’t organize marches anymore. Trump doesn’t care about that,” said one conference participant. For example, after the initial shock last year, Miles Arnett and other young researchers founded SNAP, Scientist Network for Advancing Policy, to support each other, contribute, get involved in policy, and in various ways narrow the gap between scientists and the rest of society.
These gaps must be bridged if research is to survive. “When people in general don’t understand what scientists do and how it can benefit them and all of humanity, they become afraid of what happens at universities,” said Michael Crow, chancellor of Arizona State University. “That’s why we need to stop talking nonsense and find new ways to communicate science in a language that people understand.”
To seriously demonstrate the costs of research and advocacy for academic freedom and independence under intense political pressure, this year’s conference invited speakers from Mexico, Syria and Nicaragua. “If I had heard you ten years ago, I could not have imagined that anyone would have to experience what you describe. Now I can only regret it,” said one of the listeners.
The love and the wonder about science is still the core of the conference. “I can’t get over the fact that we know that there are icebergs on Pluto that are two kilometers high and that they are covered in methane dust, that there are people who have been cured of sickle cell anemia and women with cystic fibrosis who have lived long enough to have grandchildren. To me, this is a miracle,” said Sudip Parikh, reminding us that we all have the ability to make a difference. “When you leave here: decide what you want to do with the universe you live in.”
Facts:AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, AAAS, is the world’s largest association for scientists.
The organization organizes a conference every February. The first meeting took place in 1848.
This year’s conference was held in Phoenix, Arizona and the theme was “Science at Scale.”
AAAS also publishes the journal Science.
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