The voters have chosen Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States. So now it’s time for scientists to share their thoughts with the business tycoon who triumphed over both Democrat Hillary Clinton and much of the Republican party he represented in the election.
There’s been almost no interaction between the science community and the campaign over the past 18 months. Most academics didn’t support Trump and never expected him to beat Clinton. Trump operatives didn’t do any outreach to the scientific establishment, and its agenda wasn’t addressed during the campaign. Last night the election results confirmed the community’s status as outsiders.
“I am simply stunned,” says Neal Lane, a Democrat who led the National Science Foundation and served as White House science adviser under President Bill Clinton. “Trump’s election does not bode well for science or most anything else of value,” adds Lane, a physicist and university professor at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
But now that Trump will be occupying the Oval Office for the next 4 years, researchers want him to know what they think it will take to preserve and strengthen the scientific enterprise. For many policy wonks, the list starts with picking a well-qualified science advisor and head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). That person should also play a big role in filling other science-related positions throughout the government, Lane and others say.
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