Late last week, I was attracted to read a commentary article, entitled, 'Trump’s anti-DEI survey: Time to rethink our research system' by Brendan Walker-Munro on 17 March 2025 from University World News ka.
Gists:
- Donald Trump issued executive orders banning federal funding on all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, grants and programmes in the US government.
- The orders impact various studies/topics from stroke recovery, computing and ancient languages.
- They already impact Australian researchers who have links to US government-funded projects.
- The US government has sent a 36-point questionnaire to some Australian researchers who are working on joint projects with US colleagues.
- Some questions include links with funding from China, Russia, Cuba, or Iran; topics related to diversity, inclusion and gender identity, climate change, or securing borders with Mexico, ending government waste, terrorism, etc.
Voices of concern are made from the Group of Eight (which represents Australia’s top research universities) and the Australian Academy of Science with the Australian government about the survey and its impact on Australian research.Some research grants have been suspended or terminated.
What can Australia do? "Some newly unemployed researchers are now poised to leave the US, taking their research with them. This poses a potential security risk, with countries such as China and Russia both keen to capitalise on Trump’s decisions.The European Union has already offered displaced US scientists a more “sympathetic place to work”. South Korea and Canada are also marketing themselves as attractive options. Australia could follow suit."
What about a smaller and less influential country like us ka? What's the balance between academic strength, funding and countries/regions of cooperation? Who will be the one(s) in charge.....at the policy level to get started and take actions? What's needed? What could be our redesigned strategic directions with changing target partners? As a big picture of our country, would we give more priority to China or other countries/regions, and why?
Any comments mai ka?
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