Mar 03, 2025 21:00:00

As soon as the Trump administration took over, the Department of Defense cut funding for research related to national security one after another, causing outrage among researchers

The

Pentagon is in the process of eliminating a groundbreaking program that funds social science research that has important implications for national security. Science has compiled a list of researchers whose government funding has been cut off.

Pentagon guts national security program that harnessed social science | Science | AAAS
https://www.science.org/content/article/pentagon-guts-national-security-program-harnessed-social-science

The Pentagon launched the Minerva Initiative, a program to fund university research in the social sciences, in 2008. The Minerva Initiative awards three- to five-year grants to university researchers for unclassified research aimed at 'helping the Pentagon better understand and prepare for future challenges.'

In its latest funding round in August 2024, the Minerva Initiative awarded a total of $46.8 million in grants to 19 teams. Research that has won grants covers a variety of topics, including AI, climate change, and refugees.

However, dozens of scientists who received Minerva grants to study threats like violent extremism, disinformation and climate change have recently reported that their funding has been terminated. At least nine of the 19 studies awarded funding in August 2024 have received termination notices, according to Science.

In addition, it has become clear that scientists who applied to the Minerva Initiative received an email from the Pentagon saying that the Minerva Initiative had ended. The Pentagon has not disclosed the reason for the end of the initiative. Neil Johnson of George Washington University, one of the scientists who said he could no longer receive the grant, said, 'I don't know if I'll be able to continue my research.'

Johnson was the principal investigator on a project to study how online and offline threats interact to lead to misinformation and anti-American rhetoric. Johnson said the study was the only one in the world to map more than 50 online platforms, and that he doesn't understand why the Pentagon doesn't want this study.

According to Scott Atlan, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, the Minerva Initiative was built on lessons learned from the September 11, 2001

terrorist attacks in the United States . The Pentagon decided that military force alone was insufficient to predict and address national security threats, and that 'social and behavioral science could help fill that gap,' so it launched the Minerva Initiative.

Atlan was the principal investigator on two Air Force Office of Scientific Research ( AFOSR )-funded Minerva Initiative studies, one of which 'focused on what keeps Western military alliances from falling apart,' and another 'exploring the motivations for continuing to fight in wars,' both of which have had their funding terminated.

Research led by University of Chicago economist and political scientist Christopher Bratman has also had its funding terminated by the Minerva Initiative. Bratman and his team were working to gain a deeper understanding of how Colombian drug cartels are organized and operated. Bratman argues that this research will help us get to the root of the problems in the fight against illegal immigration and fentanyl . 'Colombian drug cartels are the largest security threat in the Western Hemisphere,' Bratman said. 'We have a unique opportunity to bring rigorous social science to document how they work and find ways to counter them.'

Leonard Sexton of Emory University, who is researching how Taiwan's defense reforms could deter attacks from China, also reportedly had funding cut off. Jacob Shapiro, a political scientist at Princeton University, described Sexton's research as 'a great program that built the cognitive and analytical foundations for developing wise defense policy.' Shapiro is also leading a study to assess whether Chinese investment projects in Southeast Asia are bringing lasting influence to China, which is still receiving grant funding from the Minerva Initiative at the time of writing.

'Losing one of the major sources of support for social sciences would be a major blow to academic research and undermine the government's ability to understand and effectively respond to threats facing the nation,' said Joshua Busby, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin who served as the Pentagon's senior climate adviser from 2021 to 2022. Atlan added that 'eliminating this initiative, which costs the equivalent of one F-16 per year, would be the least cost-effective measure the Pentagon and the nation could take.'

The Minerva Initiative was also under threat of termination in 2020 during President Donald Trump's first term in office. At that time, Pentagon officials sought to end the initiative, arguing that Minerva's funding should be used for other priorities, despite the National Academy of Medicine praising the research funded by the initiative in 2019.