Episode 11. Opportunity in opposition

On April 14, Harvard University saw 2.2 billion US$ in grant money frozen after it elected to maintain diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Princeton, Cornell, Northwestern universities also suffered cuts in funding for similar reasons.

As the freezing of research funding expands weekly in the US, universities have created “bridge funding” to support affected graduate students and programs. Furthermore, alternative sources of cash are under consideration: after all, wealthy patrons centuries ago funded state-of-the-art ventures such as Mozart’s work, and indeed, America’s colonization by Columbus.

On the street, R&D investments have held steady at roughly US$5B in 2025, but equity money is risk-averse and the pool of VC-backed startups is down 70%. There too, a starved innovation sector struggles to keep pace with dwindling resources.  

The scientific community needs not be passive at the receiving end of this: in academia and in the private sector, we must do more with less. To put a value on innovation, I compiled publicly available data on academic R&D funding in “large publishers” and divided it by the number of peer-reviewed publications for each country.

In the USA, the cost of R&D leading to a publication was US$ 129 692 (624 554 articles in 2020). Germany, Japan, France, Canada were less efficient than US researchers. At the other end of the spectrum, UK academics spent less per article published, and the Netherlands were most efficient at US$ 79 985 per article. (Officially, China’s US$ 46 637 was spectacularly efficient, but the data on academic R&D investments were hazy and the number of publications equally unverifiable.)

Clearly, Dutch innovation works with less, and whatever the recipe, it will be valuable in countries such as Germany and Japan.  Post-doctoral researchers, collaborative departmental strategies, efficient resource sharing all play a role in decreasing the cost of research, as do outside forces such as instrument manufacturers; On my desk is a

purchase order for a pair of new flow cytometers, for which an astute colleague has negotiated a 44% discount worth over US$ 249 000. Instruments and supplies distributors understand the market and can create conditions supportive of R&D activities in exchange for long-term relationships. Elsewhere, selling equipment and replacing it with used but perfectly serviceable equipment is also part of an optimized R&D strategy.

In times of lean funding, it's not always the biggest grants or the fanciest instruments that drive science forward—it's the sharpest minds and the most creative thinkers. When resources are scarce, innovation thrives not in spite of constraints, but because of them. The most powerful tool we have remains a resourceful and imaginative brain.

Let’s do more with less, my friends!