Amid funding uncertainty, neuroscientists report a mix of cynicism, persistence

Several commenters also noted the uneven impact of funding cuts. Kameron Decker Harris, associate professor of computer science at Western Washington University, says that non-R1 universities such as his are likely to be hit especially hard. “The [funding] pool is getting smaller, and we get lumped together with universities that have far more resources,” he says. “It’s very hard to compete.” Lack of grant funding is already affecting whether he can pay students, go to conferences and publish in open-access journals. “A $2,000 publishing fee would be a third of the cost of funding a summer research student,” he says. “The levels of money we deal with are an order of magnitude less than any of these big research institutions.” Decker Harris says he also plans to continue to apply for grants, “but I expect I will be shrinking the size of my research group.”