News & Comment

In the USA, the Trump administration has signed executive orders that impose censorship on key areas of scientific research, strip government scientists of their jobs and reduce federal funding for science. Five co-organizers of the nationwide Stand Up For Science movement explain the need for collective action at this time.

Protests calling for ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ in Iran have been met with government crackdowns, affecting universities across the country. In response, Iranian academics abroad have formed the International Community of Iranian Academics. Founding member Encieh Erfani talks to Nature Human Behaviour about their work.

Many academic researchers wish to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation in relevant ways, but do not know how. Wolfgang Knorr, cofounder of ‘Faculty for a Future’, talks to Nature Human Behaviour about how academic researchers can create meaningful impact and can help to address the climate crisis

Licypriya Kangujam is a 10-year-old climate change activist from India. She also founded the Child Movement to raise the voices of the children of the world in the fight against climate change. In conversation with Nature Human Behaviour, she talks in her own words about her motivation to become an activist and her wishes for the future.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), part of the Biden administration, recently announced a major new policy framework which will require all US federally funded research to be made freely available immediately upon publication, at the latest by January 2026. Dr Alondra Nelson, head of the OSTP, talks to Nature Human Behaviour about the background to and implications of this widely discussed decision.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought into stark relief the role that fossil fuels can play in conflict. Leading Ukrainian climate scientist Svitlana Krakovska talks of the terrors of the war in Ukraine and how divesting from fossil fuels will bring humanity onto a safer path towards a sustainable future.

COVID-19 has started to reach Africa, a continent that has in recent decades faced the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic and the Ebola epidemic of 2014–2016. Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, talks to Nature Human Behaviour about the African response to COVID-19.

In his capacity as immediate past president of the Federation of Associations of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Jeremy Wolfe interviews Mike Lauer about the new NIH clinical trials policy. Mike Lauer is NIH’s deputy director for extramural research, serving as the principal scientific leader and advisor to the NIH director on the extramural research programme.