America’s scientific future depends on what Congress does next

For a young scientist, choosing a career in research requires confidence that years of training will lead to an opportunity to contribute. The past two years have damaged that confidence.

This week’s election offers a chance to begin restoring it. The students, postdoctoral researchers and young investigators deciding whether they have a future in American science need concrete reasons to stay.

Their decisions matter far beyond university campuses.

Federal research funding supports jobs and businesses while producing discoveries and training the workforce on which private industry depends. New medicines, technologies and entire industries emerge from research with applications that often could not have been predicted at the outset. Public investment sustains that work through years of uncertainty. Losing research capacity weakens our ability to generate the next sources of economic growth.

Congress should therefore make scientific recovery an economic priority. A laboratory takes years to build; once its team disperses, restoring its funding cannot instantly restore its expertise. Every delay makes recovery harder and risks wasting the public investment already made. Congress must use its funding and oversight powers to preserve what can still be saved and rebuild what has been lost.

The administration will retain control of the research agencies, and funding legislation will remain subject to presidential veto. Congress will need to combine sustained oversight with bipartisan agreements that protect scientific independence and ensure that appropriated funds reach researchers. Building that coalition must begin now.

The first deadline comes before the newly elected Congress takes office in January. On Dec. 11, the current stopgap funding measure expires , along with its temporary prohibition on the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed overhaul of federal grant rules .

Congress must preserve research funding and extend that prohibition. Allowing political control over grantmaking to become more deeply entrenched would make recovery considerably harder. The outgoing Congress has an immediate responsibility to act.

Appropriated money must also reach laboratories. In 2025, the Government Accountability Office found that the National Institutes of Health had unlawfully withheld appropriated funds . An award delivered after a research team has dispersed may come too late to save the work.

The next funding agreement should require timely grant decisions, protect against politically motivated interruptions and require agencies to account publicly for withheld funds. Preserving a budget on paper accomplishes little if researchers cannot use it.

A dedicated recovery program should provide emergency bridge funding while suspended or terminated awards receive expedited, independent review. Restart support should cover the actual costs of resuming valuable work, with urgency for long-running studies, irreplaceable biological resources and teams at risk of dispersing.

Extending a grant’s deadline will not pay salaries or maintain equipment. Congress should provide recovery funding in addition to regular research budgets, preserving opportunities for new discoveries while repairing disrupted work.

That effort must include rebuilding the agencies responsible for evaluating proposals and delivering awards. Experienced program officers, review staff and grants administrators are essential to making research funding function. Congress should fund that capacity and require clear schedules for resolving interrupted awards and disbursing recovery support.

The next generation deserves particular attention. Even short funding interruptions can alter a young scientist’s career.

Congress should fund extensions to fellowships and training grants, bridge support for early-career laboratories and opportunities for displaced researchers to resume their work. Agencies should extend eligibility windows for career development awards, and universities should adjust promotion timelines and protect trainees. Researchers should not lose their next opportunity because of interruptions imposed on them.

Recovery also requires welcoming scientists from around the world. The federal government must provide predictable visa processes, and research institutions must sustain international collaboration. Talented people have choices about where to build their careers. Attracting and retaining them requires dependable support and confidence that they can pursue their work freely.

Congress must put lasting protections for scientific independence into law. Suspending, terminating or withholding awards should require documented grounds tied to published criteria and timely access to independent review. Agencies should explain departures from scientific review recommendations. Public reporting, independent audits and whistleblower protections should help expose political interference and enforce these safeguards.

Elected officials have a legitimate responsibility to set broad research priorities and demand accountability. Peer review itself should remain open to improvement. Clear rules can preserve those responsibilities while guarding against the use of research funds as political rewards or punishments. Those rules must bind administrations of either party.

Successful recovery will be visible in laboratories: awards delivered on time, valuable research resumed and young scientists able to complete their training and establish independent careers. Congress should set public benchmarks for those outcomes. Researchers must again be able to plan work that takes years with reasonable confidence that commitments will be honored.

The young scientists weighing their futures today will help determine America’s future health and prosperity. The election created an opportunity to give them reasons to stay, build and discover. Congress must now make that commitment credible.

Carole LaBonne is the Erastus Otis Haven Professor of Molecular Biosciences at Northwestern University.