Trump Plan for a 'Golden Age' of Science: More Money for A.I., Less for Universities

President Trump's top science adviser told Congress on Wednesday that the government plans to make big changes to how the United States funds scientific research. The adviser, Michael Kratsios, said the administration wants to move money away from universities and toward individual researchers and private companies. He also said the government would focus more on artificial intelligence, robotics, and nuclear energy. The announcement came one day after the White House released a report called "Science: A New Golden Age."

Kratsios appeared before a House of Representatives committee to explain the plan. He argued that the United States has slowed down when it comes to making major scientific discoveries. "Our ability to make transformational breakthroughs here in the United States has slowed," he told lawmakers. He said it might be time to try new ways of doing science instead of sticking with the old system.

Democrats on the committee strongly disagreed with Kratsios. They said the Trump administration had already hurt science by firing workers at government science agencies, cutting research budgets, and canceling grants. Some said these actions were pushing top American scientists to move to other countries. Representative Zoe Lofgren of California made a sharp joke, suggesting the report should instead be called "Unleashing the Golden Age of Science in the People's Republic of China."

The current system for funding science in the United States has been in place since the end of World War II. It was set up based on a 1945 report by Vannevar Bush, who helped organize the Manhattan Project, the program that built the world's first atomic bomb. In that system, the government pays for basic research, universities carry it out, and private companies turn the results into products. Kratsios wants to change that by reducing universities' role.

The report also said the government should spend less on "life sciences," which includes fields like genetics, molecular biology, and medical research. This worried many scientists and doctors. They feared it could mean less money for the National Institutes of Health, the main government agency that funds medical research. Jeremy Berg, a science expert who once led part of NIH, called the report "tremendously misinformed."

Berg said Kratsios was focusing too narrowly on artificial intelligence and ignoring the fact that many great science discoveries happen by accident. He said it seemed like Kratsios wanted to run science funding like a venture capital fund — the kind of business that invests in start-up companies hoping to make a profit. "Why the federal government should be investing in that, I don't know," Berg said.

Kratsios himself is different from most presidential science advisers. He is not a scientist. His background is in Silicon Valley, where he worked at an investment fund connected to Peter Thiel, a well-known tech investor who supported Trump. While past science advisers usually had doctoral degrees, Kratsios holds only a bachelor's degree in politics from Princeton University.

The White House report called for cutting the time scientists spend applying for grants and measuring whether research funding is actually producing results. It listed priorities like physical sciences, chemistry, artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion, robotics, quantum computing, and space exploration. However, the report was vague about which areas of science would receive less funding. It said agencies should focus on "foundational research" in biology rather than life sciences, but did not explain exactly what that meant.

Democrats also pointed out that the report did not mention the firing of many young scientists or the cancellation of hundreds of grants to early-career researchers. It was also silent about a proposal that would let political officials review and block science grants if they thought the research went against "American values." Representative Deborah Ross of North Carolina told Kratsios that letting politicians block grants was "simply incompatible with any kind of commitment to robust scientific research."

Kratsios did not directly defend that proposal. He said he would work with the budget office to make sure science spending stayed "world class and trustworthy." On one point, he did seem to agree with critics — when a Democrat showed charts proving that National Science Foundation funding had dropped sharply this year, Kratsios admitted he wanted to see the numbers recover. "I'll do everything that I possibly can to help move that line," he said.