Trump team ‘survey’ sent to overseas researchers prompts foreign-interference fears

Document asks US-funded scientists in Australia, the United Kingdom and the European Union to declare links to China and to projects on diversity, equity and inclusion.

A growing number of researchers in Australia, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada who receive US funding have been asked to declare their institution’s links to China and whether their projects comply with US government ideology. Associations representing universities in these regions say this threatens academic freedom and undermines scientific advancement.

Several universities or university associations have confirmed to Nature that some of their staff or members were sent a detailed survey asking whether their US-funded projects relate to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), climate and environmental justice or what the survey calls gender ideology. In the United States, President Donald Trump’s administration has cut funding for research related to these topics. Other questions ask specifically about institutions’ funding ties and collaborations with entities that could be against US interests.

The survey “is at the extreme end of foreign influence in a way that we have never seen from any of our research partners”, says Vicki Thomson, chief executive of the Group of Eight (Go8) consortium of Australia’s leading research universities, some of which have received the survey. It could “tip over to foreign interference if it is contrary to our values and national interests”, she says.

Many universities in Europe have advised their researchers not to respond to the survey, but some in Australia have responded.

The questions

The 36-point survey also asks researchers whether their institutions work with communist, socialist or any parties that espouse anti-American beliefs, according to copies of the questionnaire posted online by UK newspaper The Guardian and by Resource, a magazine published by Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands.

Responses to questions are scored out of a total of 180 points. Projects get higher scores if they don’t contribute to DEI, climate or gender “ideology”, or if the researcher confirms that their organization doesn’t work with communist or socialist parties, or with any parties that “espouse anti-American beliefs”. Projects that contribute to preventing illegal immigration to the United States; to combating prosecution of Christians; and to supporting efforts to secure rare-earth minerals also score highly. By contrast, institutions that receive funding from China, Russia, Cuba or Iran score lower.

Thomson says that, although funding agencies often ask about universities’ policies on modern slavery, gender-equality plans and other good research practices, many questions in the survey are “beyond the traditional scope of grant compliance”. Researchers were given 48 hours to respond to the questionnaires, she says.

Chad Gaffield, chief executive of the U15-Group of Canadian Research Universities in Ottawa, says that although the questionnaire asks some familiar and appropriate questions about accountability, transparency and security, other points “politicize the research enterprise”. The questions threaten the ability of US-led research projects to address crucial questions and thereby undermine the advancement of knowledge, says Gaffield.

In the Netherlands, where researchers in at least one university were sent the survey, Caspar van den Berg, president of the umbrella group Universities of the Netherlands, said the survey was an example of the deteriorating climate for the freedom of scientific practice in the United States — and that this is affecting Dutch universities and Dutch researchers. It “underlines the importance of all of us standing up for free science”, van den Berg said in the daily Dutch newspaper NRC.

University response

The survey has been forwarded to foreign researchers either from their research partners in the United States or directly from US government departments. Copies of the survey that have been shared online state that the document has been sent on the instruction of the US Office of Management and Budget, a large office in the executive branch of government, which oversees the federal budget.

Ruben Puylaert, spokesperson for Wageningen University & Research, confirmed in an e-mail to Nature that a researcher at Wageningen University & Research had received the questionnaire from the US Geological Survey. Thomson says that Australian researchers have also received the survey from the US Department of Agriculture and the US Department of State. And the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich told Nature that it had also received the questionnaire. Markus Gross, a spokesperson for the institute, said it was consulting with other Swiss universities on how to respond.

Cover photo:  Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands has posted online a copy of the survey that some of its researchers received.Credit: Shutterstock