scientists worldwide are reacting to Trump’s election

Scientists around the world expressed disappointment and anxiety when Republican Donald Trump won the final votes needed to secure the US presidency in the early hours of November 6. As a result of Trump’s anti-science rhetoric and actions during his last termMany are now preparing for four years of attacks on scientists inside and outside the government.

“In my long life of 82 years… there has hardly been a day when I have felt sadder,” says Fraser Stoddart, a Nobel laureate who left the United States last year and is now a professor of chemistry at the University of Hong Kong. . “I have witnessed something that I think is extremely bad, not just for the United States, but for all of us in the world.”

“I’m speechless,” said Sheila Jasanoff, a social scientist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Votes are still being counted in many places, but Trump has already won enough US states to sail to a resounding victory over his opponent, Vice President and Democrat Kamala Harris. Trump addressed his supporters early today as the victor, calling his coalition “the greatest political movement of all time.”

Republicans also appear poised to win the upper chamber of the US Congress – the Senate – and flip at least three Democratic seats, although five competitive races remain to be called for both parties. It could take days or weeks before the final results are known in the House of Representatives, but it seems likely that Republicans will retain control. This would give Trump and his party full control of the government in Washington DC.

“We have to be ready for a new world,” says Grazyna Jasienska, a longevity researcher at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. “I try to be optimistic, but it’s hard to find positives for global science and public health when Republicans take over.”

Trump has called climate change a hoax in the past withdrew the country from the Paris climate agreement; he has said he would give Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a political figure who has denied the effectiveness of vaccines, a “major role” in his administration, and he has done so promised to make it easier to fire specialists such as scientists from the US government who are against his political agenda.

The concerns pouring in this morning are consistent with those expressed by the majority of readers responded last month to an inquiry from Nature. Eighty-six percent of the more than 2,000 people who responded to the poll said they favored Harris, citing concerns about climate change, public health and the state of American democracy, among other things. Some even said they would consider changing where they live or study if Trump won.

The responses addressing that sentiment came quickly. Tulio de Oliveira, a leading virologist at the Center for Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, posted on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter): “With the changes happening around the world you may want to move to one of the best universities in (South Africa) in one of the most beautiful regions in the world!” he said and linked to vacancies for postdoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships.

Another concern for researchers is that a second Trump presidency will be “another nail in the coffin for trust in science,” given his anti-science rhetoric, said Lisa Schipper, a geographer specializing in climate change vulnerability at the University from Bonn in Germany. . According to a survey of thousands of American adults by the Pew Research Center in Washington DCthe percentage of people who say science has had a positive effect on society has fallen steadily since 2019.

This is a breaking news story that will be updated throughout the day.

With additional reporting from Davide Castelvecchi and Elizabeth Gibney.