Scientists around the world are gearing up for the Nobel Prize ceremony, but one of the awarding committees has sounded the alarm, warning that academic freedom in the United States and elsewhere is under threat, Reuters reports.
US President Donald Trump has already implemented and proposed a series of measures that critics say will hinder education and scientific research. Ylva Engstrom, vice president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said the changes introduced by the Trump administration were foolish. She told Reuters that they could have dramatic consequences in both the short and long term: “Academic freedom… is one of the pillars of the democratic system.”
The Nobel Prizes, considered by many to be among the most prestigious scientific awards in the world, will be announced next week, with the awards in medicine or physiology or medicine leading the way, followed a week later by the economics prize.
The awards, founded by Swedish dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel, also recognize outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, literature and peace. Trump has repeatedly said he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, although experts say the odds are slim.
Trump has called for cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest funder of biomedical research. He also wants to dismantle the Department of Education to reduce federal involvement in education and give states more latitude. His administration has said it wants to prioritize programs that focus on “patriotic education” and has demanded that schools reduce the number of international students. Engstrom said
this would significantly reduce what American scientists can and are allowed to do, what they can publish
and what research they receive funding for.
The White House said in an email that the United States is the world’s largest funder of scientific research. The administration’s budget cuts are aimed at reducing waste, fraud and misuse of funds, and strengthening American superiority in innovation and science.
The US president’s relations with several prestigious universities have soured. Among them are educational institutions whose academic staff could be among this year’s Nobel laureates. He has threatened to withdraw funding from them, with the main reasons being their holding of pro-Palestinian events, the number of foreign students and the universities’ approach to transgender issues.
The Nobel Foundation has stated that, as in the past 124 years, there are challenges to academic freedom and that it is closely monitoring the situation. The Foundation is protecting knowledge, freedom, and the ability of scholars to research freely, writers to write freely, and the peace efforts that must continue to end conflicts around the world.
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