Posted on 03/22/2025 12:12:11 PM PDT by george76
Australian universities are crying foul after the Trump administration asks questions that put $386 million in research grants in jeopardy. The bone of contention was a questionnaire sent to Australian grant recipients asking if the institution had "ties to communist or socialist parties, receive funding from China and it only recognises male and female sexes."
The grants were frozen in January, shortly after President Trump was inaugurated, but were unfrozen at some time thereafter. This new round of questions is the second time the universities were queried, but this time, it has their attention.
Seven days after the Trump administration assumed office, one of Australia's Group of Eight universities was notified that US funding for a project had been paused.
"This is really concerning and the thin end of the wedge in terms of where it potentially could go," Group of Eight CEO Vicki Thomson said.
The administration has already sent questionnaires to Australian researchers asking 36 questions on a wide range of topics including drugs, US government transgender policies, and Christianity.
It also asks them to confirm "your organization has not received ANY funding from the PRC (People's Republic of China) … Russia, Cuba, or Iran".
"The nature of the questionnaire was quite astounding," Ms Thomson said.
"If this was any other country, it verges on foreign interference. It's just remarkable."
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on criticisms of the questionnaire.
If you are getting money from a foreign government, you sort of lose the right to complain about "foreign interference" when that government clarifies its terms and conditions.
Australia spends about $800 million per year on university-based research; the US contribution is about a third of the total spent on academic research.
The affected universities are demanding an "emergency meeting" with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Australian Academy of Science chief executive Anna-Maria Arabia told the Australian Financial Review the federal government had to be quicker to respond to the cuts rather than choosing to "wait and see".
"It is incumbent on the prime minister to call an emergency meeting of the National Science and Technology Council, which he chairs, compelling all ministers to the table to share intel and comprehensively assess the extent of Australia’s exposure to a reduction in US R&D investment across portfolios,” Ms Arabia said.
"The consequences of inaction are profound with consequences for every Australian’s way of life,” she said.
"We don’t know the full extent of the pain US measures will inflict on Australia, but we do know it’s coming, and we have a chance to put in place strategies that will allow Australia to capture opportunities whilst mitigating the worst of the damage.”
For the life of me, I really don't understand why it is in our interests to fund research at foreign universities using federal funds. Research funding is a zero-sum affair. Doling out $386 million to Australian universities means that money will not be available for funding opportunities for American scientists or world-class scientists living in other countries who want to come to America. We should've learned the folly of pushing our research dollars into foreign universities where we can't control what goes on with our Wuhan Institute of Virology tragedy.
So why are we giving them money? They’re not even American.
bttt
Get your money from your HOME COUNTRY
There’s universities in Bhutan that are closer to the United States than this one.
Kickbacks ?
Why are we funding their research?
Hugo Chávez would also give away all of Venezuela’s money
Vegemite research is important!
The money stops they complain and never say Thank you
“If this was any other country, it verges on foreign interference. It’s just remarkable.”
It borders on foreign interference to ask for information from those to whom you’re giving hundreds of millions of dollars to? How “entitled” can one be?!
Well I'll tell ya what sweet cheeks. I think you should reject all foreign interference from the US and stop taking our money.
The actual news story is that we are funding Australian universities to the tune of (at least) $385 million.
“Hey Bruce, the teat went dry”
LOL. In my prior job I teleconferenced with counterparts all over the world. In every conversation with the Aussies there was always someone that would extol the virtues of Vegemite.
You will probably find that people at the university are funneling some of the grant money back to politicians or organizations run by politicians. Having been involved in college grants, they are how the professors and students are paid. The subject of the grant, in my experience, only got attention when it was time to generate a report. The report invariably supported whatever the grant was supposed to be about although in some cases, if you got past the broadly written summary which could be interpreted multiple ways you’d discover the actual data did not support what the summary seemed to say. So, yeah, fraud.
We’ve long been aware that we’re not only defending the world, we’re subsidizing it as well. But $386,000,000 for Australian research grants still comes as a bit of a shock.
Just think of how much that money would have helped recovery efforts in our recent domestic disasters.
Our priorities have been seriously screwed-up. For a long, long time.
Hmm...so tapping foreign governments for $384 m-m-million is fine but strings attached are foreign interference? If they want none of this interference they can always say “No thanks, keep your money.” Which might be the best thing for all parties involved anyway.
Exactly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.