After a year of strong APS advocacy, Congress protects funding for science

In its fiscal year 2026 appropriations, Congress rejected the drastic cuts to the federal science budget proposed by Trump last May. While funding for some science agencies decreased, the reductions are nowhere near the double-digit levels called for in the president’s 2026 budget proposal.

The physics community should be proud of its role in securing this outcome, says Mark Elsesser, the APS director of public affairs. Over 10 months, thousands of APS members participated in the society’s advocacy initiatives to preserve federal science funding.

APS knew science funding might be targeted as soon as the 2024 election results were in, Elsesser says, given Trump’s budget proposals during his first term. But by early February 2025, the situation felt even more dire. Science traditionally receives bipartisan congressional support regardless of the president’s proposal, but with Trump’s increasing influence over his party, there was concern that the Republican-controlled Congress might not be willing to oppose his wishes.

As the threat of cuts loomed and the Department of Government Efficiency entered federal science agencies, APS scaled up its advocacy plans and invited other societies to participate.

“One of the most impactful ways to influence members of Congress is constituent voices,” Elsesser says — a guiding principle for the organization. APS began recruiting scientists to share personal stories and convey the local impacts of such cuts to their congressional representatives.

To maximize efforts, APS focused its ground game on key Republican senators across nine states — Alabama, Alaska, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Even before the president’s budget proposal was released, APS was training volunteers from these states to advocate for science funding in face-to-face meetings with their senators' state offices.

“We’re building a member-driven, locally tuned, state-based grassroots campaign,” the APS chief external affairs officer, Francis Slakey, told attendees during a town hall at the 2025 APS Global Summit. “That’s how we’re preparing to respond to proposed cuts to the federal science budget.”

Game time

When the president’s detailed budget proposal finally dropped in early May, the cuts were alarming. Trump called for slashing more than 50% of the National Science Foundation’s budget, 47% of NASA’s science budget, 40% of the National Institutes of Health budget, and other science agencies’ budgets by double digits.

Cuts at this scale — 22% of the entire science budget — would devastate the U.S. scientific enterprise, reroute the U.S.’s STEM workforce to other countries, and slow down the economy, according to analyses by APS and other scientific societies. Around 40% of the basic research and more than half of the academic research and development in the U.S. are federally funded, according to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

“Students’ dreams and scientists’ careers of discovery, entrepreneurship, and social impact will be derailed if these reductions become reality,” APS President John Doyle and APS CEO Jonathan Bagger wrote in a message to members. “America’s future will suffer.”

Their email, sent to APS members the same day the budget details were released, urged members to contact their congressional senators and representatives in support of science funding. APS provided 52 draft letters, one for each state, D.C., and Puerto Rico, with state-level data highlighting the local impact of science funding. APS members sent more than 14,500 such letters in the ensuing months.

Meanwhile, in the target states, small groups of APS-trained constituent scientists met with Senate offices. Although APS’ Congressional Visit Day brings scientists to Capitol Hill each year, this was the first large-scale orchestration of congressional meetings outside D.C. Around 100 scientists prepared for dozens of meetings across the nine states. APS also recruited and coached op-ed writers, who published 25 pieces in local papers urging support for science funding.

Andrew Mugler, a professor and theoretical biophysicist at the University of Pittsburgh, had little advocacy experience before 2025. But after seeing the impacts of Trump’s first few months in office, he signed on to APS’ advocacy efforts in Pennsylvania. Since then, Mugler has met twice with staffers for both Senator John Fetterman and Senator Dave McCormick, published an op-ed in a state-wide newspaper, and hosted staffers at his institution.

“This year was a wake-up call for me,” Mugler says. Previously, he’d never really considered whether his students or the public knew where science funding came from. “Now that's something I share publicly as often as I can,” he says.

While it's difficult to quantify the impact of such efforts, late summer brought hope that they were working. The Senate Committee on Appropriations reported its 2026 spending bills, which included only minor changes to science funding compared to 2025. Still, Elsesser wasn’t ready to celebrate. You have to keep advocating until the end, he says, “so when you get into that final bit of negotiation, and people have to give here or there, they're not giving on the things you care about.”

That celebration finally came in January 2026, when Congress passed appropriations bills closely resembling the Senate versions and Trump agreed to sign them. Funding for the National Science Foundation decreased by 3.4% and NASA by 1.1%, but other science agency budgets remained flat or increased. “That’s when we felt relief,” Elsesser says. But not completely. There were — and still are — concerns surrounding whether all the money will be spent as intended.

Looking ahead

The White House Office of Management and Budget has been unusually slow in releasing the funding appropriated by Congress to the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, reports Nature, and NASA funding was released with new spending restrictions. There are also fears that the administration could try to push through a rescission package, as it did in 2025, to withdraw already appropriated funding.

The passing of the appropriations bills isn’t the end of the 2026 funding story; it’s “the beginning of ensuring that those funds are then spent by the departments and agencies as Congress appropriated them,” reads the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s FY 2026 R&D Appropriations report.

While keeping an eye on this situation, APS is also gearing up for another budget cycle. Trump’s 2027 budget proposal could be released as early as this month, and it is expected to include major cuts to science funding again. As a result, APS is expanding its digital and ground game while seeking a new avenue of support — the public.

Through a Venture Grant from the American Institute of Physics, APS will be collaborating with other societies to invite science enthusiasts and members of the public to join its advocacy efforts. Policymakers need to hear about the value of science funding from more than just scientists, Elsesser says.

Budget issues aren’t the only challenges the physics community is facing from the Trump administration. Last year brought a 12% decline in the federal physical science workforce, grant freezes, restrictive visa policies, and changing research priorities. Mugler encourages anyone interested in advocating for science to take advantage of the resources and training APS provides. That can give you confidence — but keep in mind that you are a constituent, he says. “It's their job to take these meetings and hear you.”