Stand Up for Science rally in Washington Sq. Park in New York Metropolis on 7 March
James Dinneen
Hundreds of individuals in cities throughout the US protested the Trump administration’s cuts to scientific funding on 7 March.
In New York Metropolis, greater than a thousand individuals gathered in Washington Sq. Park, chanting, “Fund science not warfare!” Folks carried indicators in assist of science and deploring the cuts, together with one which learn: “Science makes America nice.”
The protest was one among a minimum of 30 “Stand Up for Science” rallies in cities throughout the US, with greater than 150 occasions anticipated worldwide. Researchers additionally walked out of laboratories as a part of the protest.
Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, the administration has cancelled or frozen billions of {dollars} of federal funding for scientific and medical analysis. Most of the cuts have targeted on analysis associated to variety, fairness and inclusion (DEI), in addition to analysis on local weather change and gender. The administration has additionally fired hundreds of federal workers at US scientific companies, together with on the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being and the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
“Science is one thing that needs to be treasured. I feel everybody needs to be right here. I might quite be in my lab working with my cells, however I feel we’ve to deliver consciousness to those issues,” says Ana Vivinetteo, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medication who attended the New York protest. She was carrying an indication that learn: “So unhealthy, even introverts are right here.”
Demonstrators maintain indicators throughout a Stand Up for Science rally on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on 7 March
Tierney L Cross / Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures
“Science is being attacked and funding is being slashed in a means that’s going to impression our nation’s well-being now and for a lot of a long time,” says Maia, a postdoctoral researcher in cardiology at Columbia College in New York, who solely gave her first title for worry of reprisal. She says she and her colleagues have misplaced funding for his or her analysis.
The biggest rally passed off in Washington DC, the place hundreds of individuals attended. Audio system there included Invoice Nye the Science Man; Francis Collins, former director of the Nationwide Institutes of Well being (NIH); and a number of other members of Congress. Greater than 1500 individuals attended the New York occasion, the place outstanding researchers additionally spoke, together with Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, chief scientist at Meta AI Yann LeCun and Harold Varmus, a former NIH director and Nobel prizewinner.
Researchers from everywhere in the world attended the New York protest. “America was very distinctive for science. We actually imagine that science made America nice. Now we’re very disillusioned as a result of every part goes to be destroyed,” says a French most cancers biologist, who requested to stay nameless.
New Scientist additionally spoke with scientists from Argentina, Israel, Canada and Australia on the rally. A number of of them had been involved they might have to go away the US to proceed their work. “I’m heartbroken. I assumed I might make this my dwelling and do my science right here,” says Vivinetteo, who’s from Argentina.
Dennis Robbins, a science educator at Hunter School in New York, was carrying an indication that learn: “Now I’m a mad scientist.” He says he carried the identical signal within the first “March for Science” protest in 2017. “It’s gorgeous that we nonetheless need to rally for science, that somebody has to talk up for its meaningfulness in a democracy,” he says.
#StandUpForScience2025 at Michigan Capitol. Nonetheless time to return out and advocate for preserving science funding and evidence-based determination making by our authorities. pic.twitter.com/jvTkTzoCaF
— Rebecca Santelli (She/Her) (@RebeccaSantelli) March 7, 2025
We stood up! We had been so proud to lend our voices (and our sign-making skills) to assist scientific analysis. #ResearchMatters #standupforscience2025 #scienceforall #sciencenotsilence pic.twitter.com/MoFMrnVkUV
— NDRI (@NDRI_Resource) March 7, 2025
Nice crowd on the March for science in Philly! Hottest signal ‘I left lab for this’. Protest is simply beginning so come be a part of us! #marchforscience #science #philly
— Melissa Shusterman (@melshust.bsky.social) March 7, 2025 at 11:04 AM
?For American and worldwide researchers stay from Paris #StandUpForScience2025 pic.twitter.com/Mvl6jYsUtg
— Maurel (@PascalMaurel) March 7, 2025
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