Perceived losses of scientific integrity under the Trump administration: A survey of federal scientists

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 15; no. 4; p. e0231929
• Main Authors: Goldman, Gretchen T, Carter, Jacob M, Wang, Yun, Larson, Janice M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 23.04.2020; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Bush, George W; Climate change; Decision making; Disease control; Earth Sciences; Environmental protection; Federal employees; Federal government; Geological surveys; Integrity; Leadership; National parks; People and Places; Perceptions; Politics; Polls & surveys; Questions; Regulatory agencies; Research and Analysis Methods; Science Policy; Scientists; Social Sciences; Surveys; Trump, Donald J; Values; Wildlife; United States > US; Iowa
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231929

President Trump and his administration have been regarded by news outlets and scholars as one of the most hostile administrations towards scientists and their work. However, no study to-date has empirically measured how federal scientists perceive the Trump administration with respect to their scientific work. In 2018, we distributed a survey to over 63,000 federal scientists from 16 federal agencies to assess their perception of scientific integrity. Here we discuss the results of this survey for a subset of these agencies: Department of Interior (DOI) agencies (the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the US Geological Survey, and the National Park Service); the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). We focus our analysis to 10 key questions fitting within three core categories that relate to perceptions of integrity in science. Additionally, we analyzed responses across agencies and compare responses in the 2018 survey to prior year surveys of federal scientists with similar survey questions. Our results indicate that federal scientists perceive losses of scientific integrity under the Trump Administration. Perceived loss of integrity in science was greater at the DOI and EPA where federal scientists ranked incompetent and untrustworthy leadership as top barriers to science-based decision-making, but this was not the case at the CDC, FDA, and NOAA where scientists positively associated leadership with scientific integrity. We also find that reports of political interference in scientific work and adverse work environments were higher at EPA and FWS in 2018 than in prior years. We did not find similar results at the CDC and FDA. These results suggest that leadership, positive work environments, and clear and comprehensive scientific integrity policies and infrastructure within agencies play important roles in how federal scientists perceive their agency's scientific integrity.