"It Will Paralyze U.S. Scientific Research"
John Clark, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who won this year's Nobel Prize in Physics, criticized the Trump administration's cuts to research funding as a "disaster."
According to AFP on October 7 (local time), Professor Clark stated at a press conference that the Trump administration's mass layoffs of scientists at government agencies and cuts to research funding would paralyze most scientific research in the United States.
Nobel Prize in Physics laureate John Clark, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is expressing his acceptance speech on the 7th (local time). Photo by Yonhap News
Professor Clark said, "If this continues, it will be a disaster," adding, "Even if this administration leaves office, it will take at least 10 years to return to previous levels." He further remarked, "No scientist can understand such actions."
The Trump administration cut federal funding for research institutes and universities immediately after taking office in January. As a result, large-scale layoffs were carried out at research institutions, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The NIH is an agency that provides about 50 billion dollars (approximately 70 trillion won) in research funding each year to universities, hospitals, and research organizations in the United States. Research grants for the National Science Foundation (NSF) were also reduced.
Professor Clark, who is originally from the United Kingdom, jointly received the Nobel Prize along with Michel Devoret, a professor at Yale University, and John Martinis, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for their research in the 1980s at Berkeley on quantum mechanical effects observed at the macroscopic scale.
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