Is this administration anti-science?

>> We want to essentially double the

scientific output of the United States.

>> Did we lose it or did it lead to moments

where you have like Fouchy?

>> That's a great question.

>> Are we in this moment, this populist

moment right now in the West where

science and technology is viewed as a

tool of the elite and therefore it must

be broken and destroyed?

>> That's what's most tragic.

>> That is a crazy crazy fact. Has science

stagnated in America? What the heck is

going on?

I'm going

>> Michael Katios, welcome to the All-In

Interview.

>> Thank you for having me. Excited to be

here.

>> So, you are the director of the Office

of Science and Technology Policy here at

the White House. Can you just tell me a

little bit about what that role is? What

do you do here? Yeah. So the office of

science and technology policy was uh

created in in the 60s to coordinate

science and tech policy across the

administration. So very unique to the US

is that we don't have an agency that

does science and technology. We have

lots of agencies that do pieces of the

science and technology enterprise. We

have a national science foundation that

does basic research. We have a

department of energy that runs our

national labs. The Department of War has

uh extensive R&D um programs like DARPA

for example. So the one office in the

White House or in the in the

administration broadly that's able to

coordinate all those efforts is the

office that that I run called OSTP. Um

and we try to do is work with the

president to set the national S&T agenda

uh and then ultimately implement that

across all of our agencies.

>> And you had this role before. Is that

right?

>> So last administration I was the chief

technology officer of the United States.

So, uh, if you think about OSTP, it does

science and it does tech. And in Trump

won, uh, I ran the tech portfolio for

the for the president.

>> So, let me kick off by asking you, is

this administration anti-science?

>> It is not anti-science. I think, uh, one

of the things that I'm most proud of is

the release of a new report a couple

weeks ago called Science, a new golden

age. Um, and I think anyone who reads

that report, I think what try what we

will most likely see is an

administration that deeply cares about

the American science and technology

enterprise. We really want the US to be

the home for the next great scientific

discoveries. We want to empower young

scientists. We want to create an

ecosystem that allows our greatest

scientists to work on the hardest

problems um everywhere in the US. And

and to us, we're doing everything we can

to align all of our agencies like I just

mentioned um to be able to help that

make a reality. But going back, there's

a poll I'm going to give you from

Nature, which is one of the scientific

journals. They pulled 2,000 of their

readers, which are all scientists.

86% supported Kla Harris in the election

according to the poll and Donald Trump

pulled at 6%.

Why is that? What is going on with the

perception of the president and this

administration as being anti-science? To

me, I think the scientific community has

lost its way over over the last few

decades. Um I think America has has been

the place of some of the most amazing

scientific transformations in history

and the government has played an

important role in a lot of them. If we

look back and think about the Manhattan

project or Apollo um these are sort of

seismic events that that only the US

government could bring together the

ecosystem to to achieve. Um, and to be

honest, I think over the last, you know,

15 or 20 years, I think science has been

deeply and deeply politicized. And we no

longer are asking sort of the very hard

and important questions of, you know,

what is a scientific method? How should

we be approaching it? Should we be

questioning um, you know, some of these

conclusions uh, and rather uh, you know,

I think it's been dominated by kind of

this this dogma. And I think it really

crescendoed and peaked in in COVID where

um suddenly, you know, there was a

certain individual that if you didn't

agree with what he said, then suddenly

you were anti-science. Uh and and to me,

I think I think that is the that that is

the most anti-science conclusion you you

could ever make. Uh and I really think

we have to return back to the basics.

And that's what we're trying to do in

this administration.

>> Yeah. I mean at the basis of what you

call the scientific method for for many

people here who might be watching that

aren't familiar it's like you ask

questions the process of science is a

process of asking questions and inquiry

and that inquiry leads to experiments

which collect data and that data is what

informs your view and then you continue

to ask questions. The idea that science

is authority is almost antithetical to

the basis of the scientific method which

is constant inquiry. Is that

>> I I could not agree more and I think

what we as a government uh for many many

decades have hadn't taken the effort or

the time to do is to apply those same

principles of the scientific method to

the way that we as a government approach

science policy and the way that we

approach research and development. Um,

right now if you talk to sort of your

your your median lobbyists for the

science community, the only thing that

they are fixated on is singularly is the

research and development budget. If the

number doesn't go up, then they haven't

done their job and they haven't quote

unquote supported science. And to me,

that's a question. But the more

important question that every scientist

should be asking is, is the way that the

US government spends at $200 billion in

S&T funding every year, is it actually

driving the best breakthroughs and

biggest breakthroughs of the American

people? Are there other ways that you

could be deploying that capital in

different to different organizations to

different scientists through different

time horizons? There's so many questions

we should be asking which we're not. And

that is what uh science new golden age

tries to bring to the front. So, I've

heard this a lot from my friends who are

scientists, who are researchers, who

work in both the academic community,

private industry, and elsewhere that

there's a perception that this

government, this administration is

cutting science funding. And it sounds

like what you're saying is that there's

an allocation of resources perhaps away

from some things into other things as

kind of the way that you're viewing

this.

>> Yeah. I think the most important thing

that people should initially sort of

table set is that there's a distinction

between a proposed budget and the uh

dollars that are appropriated by

Congress. So Congress controls the purse

strings. They're the ones who say how

much science funding there will be and

they've consistently continued to fund

science over the last the decade plus.

But I think you know the more sort of

policy question to think about is and

the way I view it is spending more money

on the wrong types of things is not the

right policy action.

>> What's an example of that?

>> So to me I think

>> sorry cuz I'll just say like in 2025

this administration disrupted froze or

terminated $3 billion in unspent funds

on active grants.

>> Yeah.

>> And so you terminated grants that

scientists or labs had received or

gotten approval for. And so maybe you

could just give us an example. What were

those three billion and what were some

of these other things that your

administration would say are not really

the right place?

>> That's a good point. To me, I think the

best example is the National Science

Foundation. And for some of the

listener, the NSF is essentially the the

premier funer of extra mural basic

research in the United States. So have

about 8 to9 billion a year where most of

that money is uh given to um academics

at universities who do research on all

sorts of basic science domains. Um,

Senator Ted Cruz and the committee on uh

at on in the Senate did did an analysis

of the grants that were given during the

Biden administration and they found that

roughly one quarter or 25% of grants at

NSF during that time period went towards

DEI related quote unquote science. And

if you think about that, that's an

astronomical amount. That is roughly $2

billion a year times four years. That's

$8 billion of science funding that went

to these DI related initiatives. And

that isn't science and that shouldn't

be. And that's that's a that's a pure

manifestation of the polit politization

of science where you had the Biden

administration stand up and say, "Oh,

you know, if you want to win a grant,

you have to make sure that you talk

about some DEI related factor in your

application. That's the only way we're

going to give you money." And that

obviously is not the way we should be

doing it. And that is not gold standard

science.

>> There was also cuts to climate science

research. And this is one that's been

deeply criticized in media and by broad

kind of scientific community

representation, journals, associations,

and whatnot. Can you just frame up the

administration's view on how settled is

anthropogenic climate change, meaning

the climate is changing because of human

action and releasing carbon into the

atmosphere and the criticality of that?

Is it a climate emergency? And what do

we know? What do we not know? and and

why are dollars being redirected away

from those research efforts?

>> Secretary Wright has been uh has been

very vocal on this and kind of serves as

the belly button for a lot of these

issues administration and and what he

has advocated for very publicly um and

has said many many times is that yes the

climate is changing and like yes you

know um humans have burned fossil fuels

over the last hundred years and that has

contributed to CO2 in the environment.

The thing that is not true and what the

data does not support is that it is a

climate emergency. And I think one of

the best examples of that is is what's

happened with these um these the RCP 8.5

they call it. So these are scenarios

that that climate scientists um try to

estimate kind of the impact of this

quote unquote climate change will have

on on on the world. And this was the

most extreme um scenario that had been

in um in numerous national climate

assessments and run by the IPCC as well.

And ultimately they determined a few

months ago that um they could not with

any scientific integrity substantiate

continuing to have this scenario play

out. So they had to pull it down. So to

me I think what

>> and this is what a lot of media and a

lot of coverage and a lot of

re-reporting was based on a lot of

funding was based on this simulation of

the future that did not come to bear

that did not happen

>> precisely and I think it's this crazy

narrative that kind of spun around where

you know they they threw in this extreme

scenario which most people believe would

never happen and now this year proven

that it will never happen because they

they they even removed it from all their

predictions. Yet every media report of

every climate assessment over the last

20 years has always focused on the

extreme example. That's the one that the

media pick fixates on and that's what

sort of like captivates the attention of

of of of all these folks and I think

that's kind of a real disservice to

science. So over the last decade to two

decades, one 15 years or so, is that why

a lot of funding has rolled into climate

research, climate science, and

terminating grants, reducing budgets is

kind of a roll back. Is that the way to

think about?

>> I I think the way we like to view it is

that, you know, we want to be investing

in the technologies and the science

which are ultimately going to create

abundant energy for Americans. something

that you advocate a lot for and you talk

about we have to win. We have to win

this fusion race. We set a target for

2035 for example for that. We have been

one of the most forwardleaning

administrations in the history of this

country on nuclear energy and we're

trying to get that up to speed and

running and supplying energy for

Americans as soon as humanly possible.

So to us I think technology is what's

going to what's going to going to have

the biggest impact for everyday

Americans.

>> Yeah. I mean I would make two arguments.

One is China's output of carbon into the

atmosphere eclipses the rest of the

world and so plus or minus 50% in the US

doesn't really move the needle. So then

there's arguably a question like is it

worth the economic cost particularly

because it mostly impacts the poorer

communities than the the wealthy

communities can afford alternatives but

poorer communities that lose access to

certain sources of energy they have to

pay the most.

>> Absolutely. I think the numbers that

I've seen, you know, roughly, you know,

two billion people around the world use

sort of this very dirty fuel for cooking

in their homes, things like wood or dung

or charcoal. And this leads, I mean, the

UN has reported leads to roughly 3

million deaths every year because of

this. And, you know, these are the

people where where sort of um, you know,

clean fossil fuel could make a huge

difference in their quality of life and

and and overall. And so if we can

accelerate through to alternative energy

sources which arguably you don't

necessarily need the government to make

happen. In some cases you need to have

technical breakthroughs like fusion but

solar battery backup I mean there's such

a strong economic incentive it's cheaper

it's easier it's deployable that the

market is kind of getting

>> solving that problem on its own.

>> That's what matters in solving you can

believe that carbon going into the

atmosphere can cause climate change. You

can believe that the world is getting

warmer, but you can also argue that the

best way to solve that problem isn't

necessarily to go backwards by 30 years

or 40 years, but to go forward with new

technology that replaces carbon rather

than forcing and making things more

expensive, which makes it very hard for

people to adapt.

>> Absolutely. And I I keep going back to

your point about about China. I mean

that that any of these sort of um

extreme policy reactions to this sort of

perceived problem would inevitably hurt

Americans the most and not actually

solve the problem whether you believe

it's happening or not.

>> So let's talk about NIH. I want to talk

a little bit about the stagnation of

scientific progress in the United

States. It's easy to look around and

say, "We've got AI, we've got gene

editing, we've got an understanding of

the genome, we've got flying cars." I

mean, all of this stuff came from the

United States. So, I think it would be

easy to argue we are making great

progress as a nation. We have made great

progress as a nation. But if you look at

NIH funding

1998 14 billion 2003 27 billion 2024 47

billion

so the budget has more than tripled

since 1998 but there has not been a

proportional rise in breakthrough

treatments coming out of that funding

arguably people call it heir's law it's

like Moore's law in reversed it's fallen

roughly 80fold since 1950 50 in terms of

outcomes per dollar spent. Uh and it

habs every 9 years. So every 9 years we

get half as efficient as we were at

getting a return on the investment we're

making. And I think this comes from your

your report or it's it's it's published.

So has science stagnated in America?

What the heck is going on?

>> I think generally our argument it has.

And I think that's one example. I think

the one that um a lot of Americans see

and feel and notice quite obviously that

I always like to talk about is uh the

speed of flight. You know, uh in the

1990s you could you could fly on a

Concord and and now you can't. We're

flying slower than we were before, you

know, 10 20 years ago. Um and and I

think and I think we can do much better.

And I think the question we always ask

is like why why is this why is this

happening? in the context of of of

government funding. Um I think you know

you could say one thing well look okay

all the all the easy problems have

already kind of been solved sort of low

hanging fruit has been picked so it's

it's harder to solve the next thing sure

but I think but I think broadly the

issue is we have not been innovative in

any way on the way that we actually

conduct the science the you know whether

it's at NIH or at NSF or at any of our

other science agencies the answer has

always been let's just keep doing the

same thing but add more money and hope

that we get more outcomes proportion

rather than asking the harder questions

about are there other ways that we could

be conducting the science, are there

other types of scientists that could be

getting the funding, could be getting

the money, are there other institutions

that could be getting the funding? And I

think those are some of the questions

that we start to bring up in in new

golden age about how we should really be

looking in the mirror and asking

ourselves, are we spending money in the

smartest and best ways?

>> Why weren't we doing that along the way?

And as you pour more money in, where

does it go that makes the overall

outcome less efficient? realize there's

no incentive to do that. I think the

incentive on the hill oftentimes is to

just keep increasing budgets that

ultimately flow down to particular

districts or particular states. On the

government side, there's no incentive to

sort of check your homework and reveal

that what you're doing is not actually

working very well. It's always easy to

like take a headline that you're

increasing funding in XYZ domain. And

the work is actually like quite hard.

It's not easy to go through 47 billion

dollars worth of funding and figure out,

you know, what's working and what isn't.

And I think that's what we try to

introduce. I there's this concept of of

meta science that's introduced in the

report where we're setting up

meta-cience units both at NSF and at NIH

where we're actually going to start

running experiments. Maybe there are

different ways that we should be doing

we should be doing funding and then we

can analyze those and and then course

correct and direct money towards places

where innovation is actually occurring.

So you're going to start doing your own

experiments on how you're allocating

money to see what has the highest

return.

>> Exactly.

>> How do you measure that?

>> Well, I think you start by figuring out

what experiments you want to run. So I

think, you know, take for example in the

National Science Foundation, almost all

the grants are done in a very standard

typical format. There's a a set of peer

reviewers or that do this merit-based

review. It's maybe three or four people

from a particular field. They take all

the applications, they review them, and

they select the ones as a group they

believe are more most meritorious. You

know, one could argue that, you know, it

is merit-based, of course, but it also

um um in many times incentivizes

scientists to not necessarily propose

crazy, bold, innovative, out of the box

ideas. They tend to want to propose ones

that are in the strike zone that the

board, for example, will will all

support. So one one thing that that

we're going to be testing at at National

Science Foundation is a concept called

golden tickets where each of the

evaluators are going to be given one or

two or three golden tickets. And this

was um initially actually tested in

Denmark and some other places. And the

theory is that you know the the um

reviewer will then be able to

unilaterally without the rest of the of

the committee agreeing can make a

selection of of a particular grant. So,

you incentivize folks to to have more um

more interesting grants. What I think

what's also kind of cool about this

concept is that um you're actually

incentivizing better people to

participate in the boards because they

have a golden ticket now and they're

more more likely to want to want to

participate. So, we want to run that

experiment and see what kind of what

kind of uh um applications actually get

approved and what kind of science gets

done. So, it creates an incentive for

scientists to propose wild and crazy

ideas because the way scientists

typically get a research grant, which is

what they need to do because that's

their living is literally get a grant,

pay for your salary, pay for the salary

of the people in your lab, is you go and

submit an application for a grant that

looks like the kind of thing that you

think will get approved. And typically

that's low risk because if something is

likely to happen, the review board would

say, "Okay, great. We're giving that

grant because we feel confident that

money is well spent." But the reality is

in venture capital, which you and I know

well, you're going to have one out of 10

things work. It's a power law. That

thing's worth 100x. And you want to have

nine out of 10 failures because that

means you're taking a lot of risk.

That's really how you push the envelope

and discover new things and make big

breakthroughs is you got to take risk,

which means failure.

>> Yeah. Exactly that. That's exactly

right. And I think another another

example of this is mo typically most NSF

grants are roughly 18 months and that's

just become kind of a a natural

equilibrium that NSF has come to just

given where the academic calendars are.

But you know all research ideas don't

require 18 months. Some of them require

3 months or 6 months. Some of them

require 5 years. And I think another

thing we're going to be testing and we

proposed in in new golden age was this

idea of different um durations of grants

and allowing there to be opportunities

for people to try fasttrack grants where

they have an idea that can be done in

six months and if it works then they can

apply for a longer grant or you may have

longerdated ideas that you would need

three four even five years to work on

that we would be evaluating. So at at

its core at almost every turn what

golden age tries to do is meet

scientists where they are. There's some

ideas that require 18 months. There are

other ones that require 6 months and we

want to make sure that there

opportunities for them to at least

propose their ideas for evaluation.

>> Well, besides funding ideas, an

alternative model is to fund

individuals.

>> This has been strongly advocated for as

you and I both know like in the venture

capital world, you find great

entrepreneurs and they may have a crappy

idea, but because they are who they are,

>> they eventually make something amazing

work. I was just reading again about

Stuart Butterfield who started Slack and

he was working on a totally different

business. He had three million left. He

told the investors, "Should I give the

money back, but by the way, we built a

communication tool that we use in our

engineering team." And they're like,

"No, go ahead, pivot. Make that the

business." And then it turned into Slack

>> and they sold it for $30 billion. And so

the idea in in science may be the same,

which is you find great people. Yes. You

give them significant funding. You let

them decide how to spend the money

rather than have some overlord that

scrutinizes every dollar they're

spending and every action they're

taking. Gets out of their way and says,

"I trust that you're going to get

somewhere. Here's a whole bunch of

money, a lot more than you're asking

for. Here's a whole lot of time. See you

in 10 years. You'll figure something

amazing out."

>> So, I think but one sort of

manifestation of that is is the way that

um we think about some of these early

career uh fellowships. So GRFPS are kind

of the the the flagship fellowship you

have at the National Science Foundation

which um you know we give um roughly

2600 of these to to the smartest and

best sort of aspiring PhDs in in in the

country. And the idea there is you know

we will give you this money to go pursue

your your PhD but it's totally portable

so you can take it anywhere you want.

You can have universities compete for

you um and ultimately you'll end up in

in a place where you're comfortable and

you can do your best research. Um and

that's where again like rewarding the

scientist and the individual and giving

them an opportunity to to pursue their

studies.

>> And then the alternative is to go after

big projects. The human genome project,

Manhattan project, Apollo moon mission.

>> China seems to be exceptionally good at

this. In the central planning context,

they have these big objectives they want

to achieve and then they organize

resources and allocate significant

capital to achieve that objective.

>> Yeah.

>> Is that an alternative funding model?

And if so, how do we organize and

execute in a in a world where you got

small labs, everyone's kind of working

on their own, maybe people are even

competing with each other for grants,

you've got private industry doing their

thing.

>> Do we have the capacity as a nation to

tackle big meaty projects

>> that can really make incredible

breakthroughs for humanity,

>> but require significant capital and time

and a long-term commitment?

>> I think the short answer is yes. And I

think what we advocate for and argue in

in science new golden age is that we

have lost our way on doing that. I think

back to even what I mentioned earlier, I

think most Americans sort of look back

favorably on things like the Apollo

mission. It kind of brought the country

together. There was a discrete goal of

something you were trying to accomplish

and only the federal government could to

sort of marshall the resources to do

that. Um and we advocate for in golden

ages. We have to return to that. Not

that's the only thing we should do, but

that should be one of the things we do

along with everything else I just

mentioned. and a couple examples of what

we're doing in that domain. Now, I think

the first is around space. The president

very boldly sort of said in the first

Trump administration that we're going to

go back to the moon and we're almost

there. I mean, we're going to have

American boots back on the moon in 28.

We said we're going to have a nuclear

reactor in space by 28. We're going to

have the first elements of a moon base

by 2030. These are like big bold bets

that take a decade to accomplish and

we're going to we're going to do it. I

think the second is around quantum

computing. So, president signed an

executive order just just last month

launching a new national quantum

initiative and one of the key goals

there that we're trying to do is create

a scientifically relevant quantum

computer by 2028. This was a directive

to the Department of Energy and we're

going to be working very hard to make

sure we can hit that pretty pretty crazy

timeline. I mean, your camp, you know,

we really want to get the fusion by 2035

and we're trying very hard to get the

resources allocated at at DOE and

combined with all the private sector

investment to to get there. And I think

the last one which is kind of our big

flagship project for the whole

administration is called the Genesis

mission. And that is where we want to

essentially double the scientific output

of the United States by applying AI to

our hardest scientific challenges and

endeavors. We fundamentally believe that

AI is going to be the biggest unlock to

scientific discovery in the history of

the world. Whether you're in material

science, whether you're in chemistry,

whether you're in math, whether you're

in physics, you know, applying AI to

your discipline is going to

fundamentally change the way that you

can do your science and accelerate the

way that it's done. Um, and we launched

an initiative in late last year to do

that. And uh, and now we have the pretty

much all of government sort of um,

working towards that effort. So let me

just break this down and try and

understand the selection process then

because some things you could argue can

be funded by private industry and they

will be because there's hundreds of

billions of dollars of capital flowing

into AI. There's a natural market

incentive for individuals to use AI

because it makes them more productive.

Do you really need the government to

fund things like quantum computing and

AI and science when those things are

getting hundreds of billions of dollars

of private capital

>> versus funding things that are like not

going to be found in the private capital

markets like you know deep space

research, understanding the origins of

the universe, pure physics, looking at

these kind of more fundamental

scientific breakthroughs that everyone

kind of waves off. But we always find

that in those fundamental understandings

of our universe emerge some application

years down the road that we weren't even

thinking about. And how do we make those

selections?

>> Yeah. No, that's that's a great point.

Something that we've advocated for quite

aggressively is we have to return the

the primary focus of government funded

research on basic early stage

pre-ompetitive R&D. This discovery

science that is an area where you know

the private sector is not incentivized

to participate in and only the

government can do that. At the same

time, having these kind of big bold

ideas only government can do is also

very important for our enterprise. If

you think about sort of the urgency to

create a scientifically relevant quantum

computer by 2028, you know, there's lots

of activity in in in quantum going on

throughout the private sector. But to

them, it's for commercial applications.

We want to create an instrument that can

be used for scientific discovery that

will pay huge dividends across all the

ecosystem. And I think the AI for

science I think the nuance there is

we're not spending money on the the

science that um the private sector is

doing around AI. You know there is more

computed more money going into AI than

anything you could ever imagine today

and the government's not trying to

compete in that space. What it's trying

to do is saying like look if you are

doing basic research on all the things

that you mentioned are so important you

should be considering how AI is going to

impact or accelerate the work that

you're doing and we want to help you

along in that journey. I I always felt

like so much of the challenge with

government is the complication. It's

like entropy over time. You have all

these different agencies, all these

different groups all competing for

budget and everything balloons. But like

>> is there a rationale for consolidating

so many of our agencies into a single

science and technology agency and being

better organized and prioritized and

allocating capital to the most important

things? It's it's a perennial debate and

I think as I reflected on it for many

years working on it, I honestly think

it's a it's it's a feature and it's not

a bug. And I think the alternative to an

extreme is kind of what what uh what the

PRC or what China is doing. And there

you have sort of a a top-down directed

um sort of single agency entity that

that sets priorities and tries to

execute. um they have been trying to

essentially figure out how to do EUV

lithography since since we put the

export controls in 2019. No breakthrough

has happened. There's nothing more

important to their economy than solving

that scientific problem and haven't been

able to do that. So to me I feel like

one of the most special features about

our system is we do have people

competing. This sort of free market

approach to innovation is a is a huge

feature of our ecosystem and one that I

think is is an important reason why we

have all these breakthroughs.

>> So that's critical for our success

fundamentally

>> I think. So I think you know the fact

that the DARPA people and the people

working on national security related R&D

are sitting at DO and not sitting at

some science agency I think makes their

work much better and more relevant to to

their mission. So before we get to China

and talk about the great race that's

underway across every domain, I don't

talk to anyone in industry, government,

or elsewhere that isn't acutely

experiencing this kind of

competitiveness with China at the

moment. But I just want to talk about

how we allocate capital because NIH,

NSF, so much of the money flows either

to a government agency

or to a university.

And it seems to me that there are

probably four channels and you might

have your own kind of rubric for this,

but a government agency can take the

money and go do research.

>> A university can take the money and the

lab is at the university and the

university administers the lab and it's

all done on campus at a university. And

we can talk about the challenges with

that which I think is really important

to highlight. And then there's industry

companies that have an economic

incentive that can do research and have

breakthroughs and get money from the

government to help them. And then

there's these kind of like independent

organizations like Howard Hughes Medical

Institute, Mayo Clinic. In Europe

there's like Max Plonc. I mean there's

these sorts of institutes that are not a

government, not private industry.

They're sort of like a nonprofit if you

will. Y

>> how do we think about allocating capital

amongst those four channels? Why they're

good, why they're not good, and how the

balance needs to shift over time for us

to get better ROI on our science

dollars.

>> Yeah. So, what you're bringing up here

is kind of the one of the big reasons

why we even wrote the golden age report.

So, if you kind of rewind history back

in in 1945,

uh World War II was ending. Vanver Bush

who was sort of the science adviser had

my role for for FDR received a letter

from the president that asked him you

know what do we do with the science

enterprise post World War II and Vanver

Bush wrote his response that became

science endless frontier which is kind

of the the seinal work in the way that

the US government should interface with

science community and has sort of served

as sort of the the north star for how we

think about science funding for the last

you know 70 years and what what Bush

proposed was essentially the system that

we have today where the government funds

basic research Arch primarily at

universities and it set up this

enterprise where all these researchers

sprung all this research kind of sprung

up and kind of the post you know war era

of it was able to do this great basic

research and in parallel to that all the

national labs that had helped sort of

build a nuclear weapons of of World War

II and so on sort of sprung up to do the

intramural work that you were talking

about. So there you had sort of two

pieces. You had government and you had

you had academia. And why that was so

important in that era was at that time

the vast majority of science funding was

done by the federal government. Roughly

70% of R&D was paid for by the US

government. About 30 was in the private

sector. What has happened over the last

70 years was there's been this dramatic

shift. Now roughly 70% of R&D is done by

by the private sector and 30 is funded

by the federal government. And as you

mentioned correctly, new institutions

have sprung up. things like

philanthropies that fund focused

research organizations, things like

Howard Hughes, Max Plac Institute and so

on. And the question now is is that

model that that Bush pushed forward and

and and promulgated and actually led to

the the great discoveries of the last 50

years, is that still as relevant today

as it was then? And our answer is it's

not and we need a refresh. And that is

why you wrote we wrote new golden age.

And for us the first basic question we

always ask ourselves is is the

government spending on something that

the private sector or others in the

community like philanthropy are not

incentivized to do. And that should be

your your first your first cut at all

points. And then you should ask yourself

kind of what are the most important

priorities for the United States. And I

think that is something that sometimes

it almost is like a tension with the

science community. many sort of people

believe that you know all discovery

science is good and you should have no

opinion about what's important and I

think we would say like no we disagree

like the government is a set of elected

individuals um congress has a very

strong opinion about where we should

spend money and they direct science

funding all the time through their

appropriations and the executive branch

should have some sort of thesis about

what's important for the country I know

we'll talk about China in a second but

we have to win on things like on AI on

quantum on nuclear on bio um and I think

there we can there can be an overlay of

kind of what are the biggest priorities

for the US government and make sure that

the gaps of places where you know the

private sector and where philanthropy

and others aren't able to fill the need

the government can step in.

>> Yeah. So what is going on with

university funding? There's this

administrative charge that universities

have. You changed that. Maybe you can

tell us a little bit about that. And

what is this administration's view on

universities taking capital that's been

allocated for scientific research,

getting an administrative fee, and where

does that money get used in ways that

maybe counter or that this

administration views being counter?

Because some people have made the case

that this administration is being

political with the changes that they're

making and how they're allocating

capital because they don't like the

politics or the social views of

university administrators. My view as as

the as a science adviser is that we

should meet the best scientists wherever

they are. If they're at a university, we

should fund them. If they're at a

focused research organization, we should

fund them. If they're on their own in

their garage doing incredible work and

can pass a mer a merit-based review

panel, we should fund them in their

garage. And to me, I think the idea that

that we are open to funding scientists

outside of universities, I think has

been sort of like twisted by the

academic community to believe that we're

like somehow anti-academic scientists.

We are pro-scientists and we don't care

where they are. And I think that's a

core tenant of golden age that we're

going to be pushing for the next few

years.

>> Okay. So, let's talk about the great

race with China. In the year 2000, China

was spending $33 billion a year. 2021

670 billion. So, China increased

spending by 19x. Over the same time

period, the US increased spending by

roughly 3x. There's a statistic I'll

quote, but it's going to be hard to

verify, but I've estimated it that about

a decade ago, US published roughly twice

as many papers and scientific journals

as Chinese labs and academics and

scientists did. And today, China's

publishing roughly 50% more in nearly

every domain with the exception of some

life sciences. Mhm.

>> China's kind of raced ahead. Frame for

us the importance of the scientific race

with China. Why does it matter? Why

should people care? Isn't science for

the benefit of humanity? Doesn't

everyone benefit when breakthroughs are

made, when discoveries are made? Why

should Americans care? And why should

the world care about where we are with

respect to this kind of competitiveness

and discovery with China? I think I

think the Chinese realized a few like

years ago that technological and

scientific leadership is the most

important foundational block to economic

and national security. Everything that

everything that we do as a country is

sort of at some in some way in my

opinion rooted in scientific and

technological discovery. Um we see it

with what's going on in semiconductors

today. The breakthroughs that that we

had in transformers and other technology

led to the large language models of

today. literally everything that's sort

of powering our economy at its core was

some sort of scientific discovery. I

think to me to talk a little about kind

of mentioned earlier, I think what what

I I keep trying to trying to push is

this idea that trying to centralize

science has historically not led to the

type of breakthroughs that you may want.

And I think to me the the free market

approach is that this extraordinarily

vibrant um venture ecosystem that we

have paired with the science funding

that the that the government does paired

with what industry is incentivized to do

ultimately leads to these to these great

discoveries. Um and I think to me I'm

also very assured because we continue to

be the place where everyone wants to

come work, live and study. Everyone

wants to build a business here. Everyone

wants to learn at our universities and

that is something that makes our our

ecosystem so special and so unique and

uh and that's why we have to like

nurture it and and make sure to keep

succeeding.

>> You could argue that some of our biggest

breakthroughs were centrally planned,

managed and funded

>> human genome project, Manhattan Project,

Apollo and so on. But yeah, generally

the competitiveness in the market, the

market-based system yields greater risk

takingaking, greater pushing of the

envelope and ultimately greater outcome.

And that's why I think the portfolio

approach we talked about so important. I

mean that's why we set these bold bets

in quantum and space and fusion. But at

the same time we've like opened the

aperture for this sort of discovery

science and free market approach to to

commercialization.

>> So where do you think China's getting

things really right? You know when you

advise the the White House the president

and you know you're talking about policy

>> when we look at China what do we see as

being incredibly well done with respect

to their policy? The playbook that they

have used for a long time is essentially

copying our IP, creating cheaper

alternatives of that particular

technology, dumping them in the United

States, getting our businesses to go out

of business and then and then squeezing

us. And I think you've seen that with a

wide variety of technologies over the

years. And and I think it's something

that we need to be very very cognizant

of. I think the second area which you

know they've taken action on and or or

threatened action on is around some of

our critical minerals which we realize

are a very important piece of our larger

sort of like tech and science ecosystem

if you will supply chain. Um so those

those are things that that we have to

constantly be be thinking about and

preparing ourselves to be able to to to

be uh to be independent.

>> But given the number of papers they're

publishing arguably they're credible

they're peer- reviewviewed let's just

say they are making breakthroughs and

they are getting ahead of us in many

cases. What's helping them there? So the

the IP theft, dumping on the market,

that's industrial trade policy type

stuff. But on this core basis of like

discovery, are they not getting ahead

and and what are they doing? Well, are

they just funding more? Cuz I would

argue by some estimates, so again,

they're spending roughly on par with us.

>> Mhm.

>> But by some estimates, they get 2x for

every dollar they put in. By some

estimates, 4x. By some estimates 10x

>> because their labor costs are lower.

They have much more automation. Their

supply chain costs are lower. Obviously

the standards are different there. Yeah.

In how things operate. So on a dollar

fordollar basis they're they're way

overspending relative to us in terms of

generating output and it's showing up in

the papers that are publishing. Is it

just a function of spending more or are

there other things that we could be

doing differently?

>> Look, I I I think to me what we could be

doing a lot more of is encouraging more

Americans to enter the STEM fields. This

is something that has been on my mind

for for many many years and a statistic

that I I've tracked for a long time is

is sort of the the percentage of USborn,

you know, PhD recipients in computer

science, for example. If you if you

rewind the clock, you know, 30 years, I

think it was, you know, 70% were

American and 30% were were foreign. And

now it's now it's inverted. Um, and I

think to us as a country, you know, I

believe that having a a a a STEM

literate workforce is one of the most

important superpowers we could have as a

country. and we're doing everything we

can to kind of find ways to encourage

our younger students to continue to

pursue these degrees. And to me, I mean,

back to this thing, I think another

thing that we have to take a lot more

seriously is, and what I've observed in

our science ecosystem is, you know, our

young scientists, the ones that have

just finishing up their PhD and are

starting their academic careers, you

know, these are one of the toughest jobs

you can imagine. You're paid almost

nothing. You know, you're in a

university, you're toiling away trying

to do trying to do research. Here's the

most underpaid people you could imagine

for what they're doing for our country.

And to us, I think we have to return our

scientific enterprise to reward them, to

give them opportunities to work on their

best ideas and to allow them to to

excel. And I think that's what that's

what we're focused on.

>> So, we train a lot of foreign students,

we bring them in, they get PhDs here.

Why don't we let them stay more? And so

what is the im immigration policy that

also bolsters the points you made

earlier about getting the right people

in the field, getting the right people

into scientific research? We've got a

lot of Chinese students that come here,

get a degree, get a PhD, and then we

don't have a program for actively

retaining that talent. They go back and

they work in the Chinese labs or Chinese

industry or, you know, in other

countries. And China is now starting to

attract scientists from India, from

Europe. Why aren't we doing that?

Because we don't have the homegrown

talent pool in science. Shouldn't we be

more active in recruiting entertainment?

>> I have to I think for us, I think you

got to do two things. I think one, you

got to make sure that we're we're

encouraging young Americans to to go

into these STEM fields and and for those

who do want to stay, allow them to sort

of pursue legal pathways to to stay

here.

>> So, is that policy being heard by the

administration? Is it accepted or is it

in conflict with a more America first

policy which is looking looking out for

Americans first, making sure jobs are

for Americans before?

>> Well, I don't think any says in conflict

with the policy. I mean, I think I think

we we as basics like before we even

start thinking about anyone else like we

have to get our house in order about how

we can get more Americans to to pursue

this stuff. Again, these numbers around

around computer science should be very

alarming for people. the idea that, you

know, seven out of 10 STEM related PhD

candidates in the United States are not

American, like anyone can look at that

and say like that just doesn't doesn't

look right given the way that we've been

educating Americans for for so many

decades. Um, and I think we have a huge

opportunity through through a lot of

these these science programs to sort of

bring bring folks back in. I think one

thing that I discovered kind of in in

writing this book and this report was,

you know, we used to have programs at

National Science Foundation that would

actually um support and encourage gifted

and talented students in American high

schools and middle schools. Um those

were stopped for some reason.

Encouraging high-erforming young

students to pursue STEM in America was

something that an actual decision was

made of the government to to no longer

fund that. And I think those are sort of

discouraging actions that we want to we

want to turn around.

>> Why is that? Seems silly. It feels like

it it's sort of part of this larger sort

of DI effort. I mean they were they were

you know you can imagine um and you

probably know well being in California.

I mean there were all these initiatives

out in San Francisco where they stopped

one to teach you know advanced algebra

to students in high school.

>> And there's this battle right now at the

University of California on SAT scores.

the professors are all saying we got

kids coming in and they can't and we

have to do remedial math to teach them

how to do math at UC Berkeley

>> is where I went

>> and it was like like you had to get like

a 1500 on your SATs just to get in there

back in the this was on when it was on

1600 I don't know if it still is but

they stopped taking SATs and now you're

seeing it in the performance when the

kids show up

>> and the professors who initially didn't

wanted to remove SAT are now saying no

no no we need it back we need it back

>> these policies are like fundamentally

harming the progression of talented STEM

M kids in America to create that

pipeline for the next scientists in

America.

>> Yes, we should be rewarding the greatest

and most talented Americans and giving

them opportunities to pursue all their

great science and tech sort of dreams

and endeavors and and I think to me like

that's that's what's most tragic where

you have kids that have potential to

pursue this yet we actively run programs

which discourage them from doing that

and that has to stop. the rest of the

world's doing it and then they're

getting paid a lot and giving nice homes

and moving to China now.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> That is a crazy crazy fact.

>> And I think too and I again to keep

harping on it. I mean honestly the the

core tenant of new golden age is about

thinking about how we can elevate the

scientist again how the way that we fund

our programs, the types of programs we

do fund, the way that we structure our

grants and fellowships are all centered

around the scientist himself. It's not

about what institution you work at or

where you came from or where you grew

up. It's about you yourself. Can you

pursue sort of gold standard scientific

work and we'll we'll support.

>> I mean in the 20th century scientists in

the post World War II particularly were

celebrities were rock stars. They were

kind of featured in magazines and

newspapers and television shows and you

know they were rewarded economically

with with fame and notoriety.

Did we lose it or did it lead to moments

where you have like Fouchy?

>> That's a good that's a great question. I

do I do feel like there are a few sort

of names in in today in today's time

that kind of meet that moment. If you

think of someone like Demis for example

at Google that that you know has won a

Nobel Prize that is sort of

>> 90% of people hate AI.

>> That is true. That is true. Maybe he can

turn the tide on that one. I'm not sure.

>> He's probably the best qualified but I

think it's an uphill battle at this

point.

>> Is true. I mean, there's this deep

anti-science, anti-technology sentiment,

not just in the US, but in the West. Do

you think it's bred locally because

people feel left behind? Scientists and

technologists, if you look historically

through great cycles, they're often

scapegoats. They're often viewed as the

elitist because they know stuff. They

have stuff that others don't. There's

knowledge, there's access, there's

control, there's power. Because when you

have a new technology, you have power

that others don't have. When you have

understanding, you have something that

others don't have. Are we in this

moment, this populist moment right now

in the west where science and technology

is viewed as a tool of the elite and

therefore it must be broken and

destroyed?

>> I don't know about that, but what I

think about is is I I really do often

times think about kind of what happened

during COVID and and kind of what what

Fouchy represented. And I think, you

know, he did more disservice to science

than than anyone in in modern history.

you know, when he is advocating for

positions like, you know, students need

to be masked in schools, when um

societies, you know, you know, the

pediatric societies are putting out

letters saying, you know, um it's okay

for people to go out um and and uh

collectively protest, but they're not

allowed to, you know, go see their dying

grandmother in a hospital. you know, no

regular median American can listen to

that and and then take science

seriously. So, I think there's a lot of

healing that needs to be done. And

that's why I think our approach to going

back to the roots of gold standard

science is so important. We have to

allow people to understand and trust

what science is about and see that it's

an inspiring and a good thing and can

change our way of life and it's not some

sort of like dogma or rule or some edict

that comes from on high but it's a a

process that all of us are part of that

we're all experimenting and learning

about the world and the universe that we

live in. Um and I I try to be more

optimistic but but I think we really

really hit a low point during co and and

I think we're going to have to take it's

going to take quite a while to dig

ourselves out.

>> Yeah. My observation during that era is

like I I always assume that if everyone

thinks something, it's probably wrong.

>> Yes.

>> Like

>> Yes.

>> But if some percent of people argue

viciously against it and some people

argue for something, there's some

objective truth to be found in that.

>> But if everyone aligns behind something

in a very kind of uniform way, there's

something really off about that. But

what was scary to me was how so many

people without empiricism, the whole

fundamental basis of science is you

gather empirical data. You ask

questions, you inquire, and then you go

gather data and you use that data to

inform your conclusion. And there wasn't

a lot of empirical data that was being

used to make conclusions. And everyone

lined up behind these conclusions and

these assumptions and it was told trust

the science. And as a result, not only

did it kind of destroy trust in science,

but I think it brings to light

questions. What happened to the

scientists? Why did they all kind of

line up like this? And why did everyone

feel it was okay to put down people that

asked questions when the basis of

science is to ask questions? And it's

okay if people ask dumb questions, if

they ask wrong questions. But there was

this breakdown on the scientific basis

of scientists being capable of asking

questions without being shunned.

>> I I could not agree more. And anyone who

asked questions were criticized by the

scientific community as being

anti-science.

>> It's crazy.

>> Antivaxer, anti- this, anti- that,

anti-science. You ask one question,

you're anti-science. If you question

some of the conclusions in the IPCC

reports on climate change, you can agree

with some things, disagree with other

things, but if you don't agree with it

all, you're anti-science.

>> Well, no, but the idea that you would

push back on the RCPA 8.5, if if I would

have pushed back on that publicly three

or four years ago, I would have been

criticized dramatically by everyone as

being

>> anti your Trumper anti-science MAGA guy,

>> but PCC says we can't even talk about

that anymore. So, so I I think I think

if you stay the course and continue to

stick to sort of gold standard science

ideals of of being inquisitive, asking

questions, following the scientific

method, I think ultimately be proven

proven right.

>> I mean, I think one of your points about

the aging of the scientists that you

make in the reports worth highlighting.

Maybe you could just talk a little bit

about the importance of where we are

because the scientific community that

we're working with today and the loss of

STEM graduates, the loss of the pipeline

may be hurting us in in our progress

with China.

>> No, I mean we have to continue to back

and support young scientists. And I

think one of the statistics which was

most alarming for me which uh which Jay

the Jay Baracharia the director of NIH

shared with me was that the median age

of an intramural researcher at NIH is 71

years old.

>> 71

>> 71.

>> That's the median age.

>> The median age of an in so these are

these are researchers that work at at an

NIH institution.

>> Wow.

>> Isn't the retirement age like don't you

get a pension before that? you know, I

gotta dig in more of that statistic, but

I think so. But I think there's this

huge opportunity to bring young

scientists back into the fold. So, I

would say stay tuned there because I

think there's a lot of interesting stuff

going to happen at NIH.

>> So, how do you get science and pure

science research,

physics, mathematics, astronomy?

How do you get these funded and get the

attention that they need in an era where

it seems like everyone is so consumed

with AI which is an applied technology?

>> Yeah.

>> And there's important work still to do.

AI can be leveraged in some of this

other stuff but like how do you how do

you think about competing on AI? Because

every meeting I go into, I'm sure you go

into it's AI this, AI that. Chips

progress with China open models that's

kind of dominating the conversation in

DC, dominating the conversation in the

world. And I feel like we're leaving

behind some of these really important

advances that we need to be making in

fundamental research. So after um new

golden age was was released on the same

day actually Russ vote who's the OMB

director the budget director uh and

myself we wrote um our annual R&D

priorities memo and in that memo we

essentially list out kind of what are

the priorities administration and how uh

individual agencies should write their

budgets to map to those research

priorities and kind of first and

foremost on the very first page we talk

about the importance of basic

fundamental research and I think those

are things that that you mentioned And I

think that memo kind of serves as the

policy United States on how agencies

like NSF should be prioritizing those

things. So I'm excited to see us go in

that direction and kind of as you say

keep reminding the world there is an

insane amount of capital going into to

R&D really into AI out in the private

sector. We should be thinking about the

stuff that that only the US government

can fund and that is that sort of basic

research.

>> So after the publication a new golden

age are there EOS executive orders

coming out from the president to follow?

Is there going to be asks of Congress? I

mean what are the actions that you need

>> in the admin and with Congress to try

and carry forward some of the ideals

that you lay out?

>> Totally. So the first implementation

document is this R&D priorities memo. So

this is a memo that goes out to the

White House that is goes out to the

agencies that essentially tells them

these are the budget um priority areas

and practices that you need to implement

going forward. Um, and the top five

research agencies, those with over $3

billion in in R&D, have a report due

back to us 90 days after the publication

on how they're going to be doing

implementation. So, you've already

started seeing announcements from the

agencies on how they're implementing the

report. You had an XLABS announcement

coming out of National Science

Foundation to sort of fund these focused

research organizations. NSF also put out

an announcement around 4-year PhDs that

that are done in partnership with

industry. so people can graduate out of

the PhD program and then go into

industry um much much more quickly. Um

and and I think these are the programs

we're gonna be seeing across across our

agencies. I think the second piece is

going to be actually working with

Congress on the appropriations to make

sure that sort of they're aligned with

the directions of of of new golden age.

But I would just stay tuned. I think we

have we have a lot down in in the pipe

and I think the burst first big step of

the White House saying thou shalt in

your budgets prioritize these things.

You're going to start seeing that

manifested over the next year. The the

one thing that pull I pull my hair out

when I come to Washington DC and

fortunately I don't have to deal with it

as often as you do is you go to Congress

down the road here

>> and you go meet with these guys in the

House in the Senate and all they want is

funding for their people. They want

money to flow to their district or to

their state. How do you balance that

demand from Congress against what really

matters that we just talked about? This

is the science. This is how it's got to

get done. This is where the people are.

This is where the institutions are. And

it's not about taking money and just

spreading it to states. It's about

achieving the mission that is clearly

defined. And the mission is what

matters. Not about a money grab for

everyone.

>> You know, I I think there's a couple

ways. I think the first thing which I'm

very optimistic about is most of the

recommendations that are in golden age

are are very very nonpartisan or

bipartisan. I think the idea of like

rethinking about the methods by which we

deploy science capital and try to fund

different institutions and promote

individual scientists are all things

that I think will be uniformally sort of

accepted or people excited about on the

hill. I think the other thing that's

actually um could work in our favor with

the hill is that a lot of these tenants

are ones that will touch lots of

difference in lots of different states.

Like if you go out and say like look you

know there is really great work being

done at a few select institutions in the

northeast. That being said, there's lots

of research done all over the country

and we want to make sure that the best

scientists, no matter where they are,

are funded. I think that's something

that can also gain a lot of support. So,

I'm optimistic, but as you know, the

hill will always be a slog.

>> And if 2028 happens and there's, let's

just say, a DSA person as president, you

think everything will kind of quickly

flip back to being the way it was? And

you know what's kind of the

institutional memory that gets created

with your administration here and this

idea of this return to this gold

standard in science versus things being

social political things driven.

>> I'm optimistic one that we'll we'll win

in 28. But but I think too these these

ideas I said before are are are pretty

nonpartisan. I mean if you're just

someone looking at the science ecosystem

and wanting to succeed, I think these

are generalizable ideas that you can get

behind. And our hope is that we can run

really hard through the tape over the

next two years and prove that they're

actually working and sort of changing it

or turning around is going to be costly

from a political capital standpoint

because they'll be working.

>> Michael Katzio, director of the Office

of Science and Technology Policy here at

the White House. Thank you for being

with me today.

>> Thank you. This was so fun.

I'm going all in.