Christina Pagel – Diving into Data & Decision making: “The attacks on science and universities are neither random nor new. This isn’t chaos—it’s a deliberate war on science and academic freedom. In just six weeks, the Trump administration has slashed research budgets, purged health and scientific agencies, censored research, and threatened universities. Making a list of the actions taken since January 2025 reveals distinct patterns. Just as the administration’s actions as a whole are following an authoritarian playbook, so are the specific ways they are attacking science. I’ve displayed 35 distinct actions in the Venn Diagram below (table of actions with links), grouped into three main categories:

• Control of science to align with state ideology;
• Undermining the independence of universities / suppressing dissent;
• Maintaining geopolitical / economic goals.

In this post, I will use academic evidence on authoritarian regimes to dig into why science and universities are threats to autocracies and how the Trump administration is using tried and tested methods for their attacks. There are also methods used elsewhere (e.g. Hungary, Turkey, Iran, China, Russia) which the Trump administration is not yet using – and which we need to watch out for over the coming months…”