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  • NATURE INDEX

Can industry fill the gap left by US research funding cuts?

If companies do step in to support research, will they publish the results, or keep them close to their chest?
By
  1. Bec Crew

    1. Senior editor, Nature Index

Nicholas Flanders and Etosha Cave stand in front of the Opus System Stack by Twelve: a shipping-container-sized laboratory

Nicholas Flanders and Etosha Cave, co-founders of carbon-conversion start-up Twelve in Berkeley, California. Credit: Mark Leong for Nature Index

As the United States cuts billions of dollars in federal funds for research, the role of the private sector in driving and supporting science and innovation has been put under the spotlight. Could US pharmaceutical giants support drug- or vaccine-development projects that have lost their funding? Will tech and engineering firms use their clout to advance defunded research in green energy? And if companies do fill the funding gap, how might the priorities of research projects shift to meet business goals and pressures?

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Nature 642, S1 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-01925-z

This article is part of Nature Index 2025 Science Inc., an editorially independent supplement. Advertisers have no influence over the content. For more information about Nature Index, see the homepage.

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