Top 10 Worst Science Funding Decisions

Congress eliminated the OTA in 1995 to save $22 million annually, stripping itself of nonpartisan scientific advice. Lawmakers have since relied on lobbyists and think tanks for technical guidance, with often disastrous policy consequences.

Despite repeated warnings from epidemiologists, U.S. pandemic preparedness funding was repeatedly cut before COVID-19. The resulting scramble cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives — dwarfing any conceivable preparedness budget.

U.S. fusion funding has remained flat for decades at levels scientists say guarantee failure. A 1976 ERDA report predicted fusion could be achieved by 2000 with adequate funding, but budgets never approached the necessary investment.

NASA's Constellation program to return humans to the Moon was cancelled in 2010 after spending $9 billion over five years. The resulting gap in crewed spaceflight capability forced the U.S. to pay Russia $80 million per seat to reach the ISS.

Post-2010 UK austerity policies froze science budgets in real terms, triggering a brain drain of early-career researchers to better-funded countries and damaging Britain's position in fields from genomics to materials science.

Trofim Lysenko's politically backed rejection of Mendelian genetics in favor of Lamarckian pseudoscience dominated Soviet biology from the 1930s to 1960s, imprisoning real geneticists and contributing to devastating agricultural famines.

Years of political controversy over gain-of-function virus research diverted attention and resources from critical virology studies, while the underlying biosafety questions remained unresolved and the moratorium was inconsistently applied.

Japan's shift from basic to applied research funding since the 2000s, driven by economic pressures, has seen its share of high-impact publications decline and Nobel laureate Tasuku Honjo publicly warn that Japan risks losing its scientific edge.

Repeated budget cuts to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation since 2014 slashed hundreds of climate science and marine research positions, undermining Australia's ability to study its own rapidly changing environment.

Congress eliminated the OTA in 1995 to save $22 million annually, stripping itself of nonpartisan scientific advice. Lawmakers have since relied on lobbyists and think tanks for technical guidance, with often disastrous policy consequences.

Despite repeated warnings from epidemiologists, U.S. pandemic preparedness funding was repeatedly cut before COVID-19. The resulting scramble cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives — dwarfing any conceivable preparedness budget.

U.S. fusion funding has remained flat for decades at levels scientists say guarantee failure. A 1976 ERDA report predicted fusion could be achieved by 2000 with adequate funding, but budgets never approached the necessary investment.

NASA's Constellation program to return humans to the Moon was cancelled in 2010 after spending $9 billion over five years. The resulting gap in crewed spaceflight capability forced the U.S. to pay Russia $80 million per seat to reach the ISS.

Post-2010 UK austerity policies froze science budgets in real terms, triggering a brain drain of early-career researchers to better-funded countries and damaging Britain's position in fields from genomics to materials science.

Trofim Lysenko's politically backed rejection of Mendelian genetics in favor of Lamarckian pseudoscience dominated Soviet biology from the 1930s to 1960s, imprisoning real geneticists and contributing to devastating agricultural famines.

Years of political controversy over gain-of-function virus research diverted attention and resources from critical virology studies, while the underlying biosafety questions remained unresolved and the moratorium was inconsistently applied.

Japan's shift from basic to applied research funding since the 2000s, driven by economic pressures, has seen its share of high-impact publications decline and Nobel laureate Tasuku Honjo publicly warn that Japan risks losing its scientific edge.

Repeated budget cuts to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation since 2014 slashed hundreds of climate science and marine research positions, undermining Australia's ability to study its own rapidly changing environment.