19 March 2025

Researchers who have received a questionnaire containing political questions from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) or other American government funders such as NIH or ARPA are advised not to respond.

An email with 36 intrusive questions has been received by researchers from organisations including Wageningen University & Research (WUR). Various media have reported on this recently.

It is not yet known whether researchers from Leiden University have received such an email. ‘We want to warn our researchers about this questionnaire, which violates our academic freedom and independent scientific research – values we firmly believe in’, said Rector Hester Bijl.

Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) has also warned researchers about the questionnaire. The USGS questionnaire asks, for example, whether the researcher’s organisation works with ‘entities associated with communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties’, whether the research project has taken ‘appropriate measures’ to ‘defend against gender ideology’ and whether the project has ‘measurable benefits for US domestic industries, workforce, or economic sectors’.

The questionnaire appears to be in line with President Trump’s new agenda. He wants to make drastic cuts to scientific research on such areas as climate, gender, health and environment.

UNL president, Caspar van den Berg, says the questionnaire is emblematic of ‘the worsening climate’ for free science in the US. ‘This is also affecting Dutch universities and researchers, which makes it crucial to stand together for free science.’

If you have received a mail like this with questions from the US, please contact your manager and notify grants@bb.leidenuniv.nl.