I am writing from Argentina as a researcher working within the country’s national scientific system. While discussions about science funding are often framed in terms of budgets and economic indicators, the reality is experienced in laboratories, offices and research facilities where scientific knowledge is produced.

Today, many of us in Argentina are witnessing a progressive deterioration of Argentine science, both in terms of infrastructure and human capital.

I am based at the Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica (CNEA), where uncertainty has become routine. Hundreds of employees remain on temporary contracts that can be terminated without warning. On 1 July 2026, a total of 61 colleagues lost their jobs, with armed military police officers occupying the building to contain a peaceful employee protest. Beyond the immediate human cost, these dismissals are steadily dismantling scientific capabilities that have taken decades to build.

The impact became tangible when my colleague Paula Alderete, an experienced electron microscope specialist, lost her position. Alderete, who has published two papers with me, was responsible not only for operating a highly specialized instrument, but also for maintaining it and supporting dozens of research projects.

Without Paula Alderete’s expertise, our lab’s electron microscope has become largely unusable. It is a quiet reminder that scientific infrastructure depends as much on people as on expensive equipment.

Faramarz S Gard

Without her expertise, the microscope has become largely unusable. Every morning I pass her empty desk on my way to the laboratory. It has become a quiet reminder that scientific infrastructure depends as much on people as on expensive equipment.

The deterioration extends beyond personnel. In my laboratory, an X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) instrument worth more than $1m must sometimes be protected with plastic sheets because rainwater leaks through the roof.

Equipment designed to operate under tightly controlled environmental conditions is now exposed to circumstances that threaten its long-term reliability. Similar situations are becoming increasingly common across Argentina’s universities and research institutes as maintenance budgets shrink and infrastructure ages.

Argentina has a scientific tradition that reaches far beyond its borders. The country has produced five Nobel laureates, including three in the sciences, and has made internationally recognized contributions to nuclear technology, medicine, agriculture, astronomy and materials science. Institutions such as CNEA, CONICET (Argentina’s national research council) and the national universities have trained generations of researchers whose work has strengthened international collaborations and advanced scientific knowledge worldwide.

Scientific systems rarely collapse through a single dramatic event. They decline incrementally: one technician dismissed, one laboratory left unrepaired, one instrument taken out of service, one young scientist deciding to build a career elsewhere. These individual losses accumulate into a weakening of scientific capacity that may take decades to rebuild.

When a country loses the expertise required to operate advanced laboratories or maintain unique scientific infrastructure, the consequences extend beyond national borders.

Faramarz S Gard

This should concern more than Argentina. Modern science depends on international networks of researchers, shared facilities and long-term collaboration. When a country loses the expertise required to operate advanced laboratories or maintain unique scientific infrastructure, the consequences extend beyond national borders.

Knowledge is lost, collaborations weaken, and opportunities for discovery diminish.scientific infrastructure is more than buildings and instruments; it is the people whose expertise gives those resources value. Once that expertise disappears, replacing it is far more difficult than preserving it.

The empty desk of a single scientist may seem insignificant, but multiplied across laboratories and institutions, it becomes a warning of how a research system is quietly dismantled. Argentina’s experience is therefore not only a national concern but also a reminder that scientific capacity, wherever it exists, is a global resource that is remarkably difficult to rebuild once lost.

I write this letter not only to describe a difficult situation but also to call attention to the broader consequences of sustained disinvestment in science. The international scientific community should recognize that the erosion of research systems in countries such as Argentina represents a loss not only for those nations but for global science itself.

Science is built by people, sustained by institutions, and enabled by infrastructure. Today, all three are under increasing strain in Argentina.

The post Letter from Argentina: ‘an empty desk and an idle electron microscope signal the erosion of the country’s science’ appeared first on Physics World.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced a new initiative to convert new research into products and industries. The $1.5bn programme, called X-Labs, however, has been criticized by some in the US scientific community given that financing the plan could come via cutting the budgets of current NSF directorates by as much as 30%.

The NSF says that the first round of X-Labs funding will focus on two areas – one on quantum sensing and AI-driven computational imaging while the second area will be in the development of quantum information and computing.

The projects that are chosen will receive $1.5m over a nine-month period to carry out further work. The NSF will then select projects to move onto the next phase in which they will receive a further $10–50m per year for 2–3 years.

According to an NSF spokesperson, X-Labs are designed to “spur progress on platform technologies critical to US competitiveness”, supporting high-risk, high-impact research that requires “substantial resources beyond traditional mechanisms”. A key goal of the handful of labs, the spokesperson adds, is to “reduce the time it takes to go from insight to impact through this new investment framework”.

While critics don’t have an issue with the concept, there are concerns that it is coming at the expense of basic research. Former presidential science adviser and former NSF director Neal Lane told Physics World that X-Labs is a “terrible idea”.

“There’s been a push to get more practical and get NSF involved in ensuring that science it funds actually makes it to the marketplace,” adds Lane. “But suddenly it’s been taken to extremes by the Trump administration. They’re trying to cut as much basic research as possible and put it all into an experimental programme.”

‘Without precedent’

The X-Labs programme comes as the NSF – one of the main science funding agencies in the US – still lacks a director. The previous head, Sethuraman Panchanathan, resigned in April 2025 after receiving orders from the White house to cut the agency’s budget by more than 50% (US Congress later restored much of the funding).

The Trump administration has announced Jim O’Neill, a Silicon Valley investor, as the next director, but he has yet to go through the necessary Senate confirmation.

There is also no further movement on the new personnel that will make up the National Science Board, the body that acts at the NSF in a way similar to a company’s board. In April the US administration announced that it was terminating the positions of all 22-member NSB “effective immediately” without disclosing the reasons for the move.

“[That removal of the NSB] is quite without precedent,” adds Lane. “It seems to be an effort to simply eliminate the NSF.”

The post National Science Foundation’s X-Labs initiative draws fire as ‘terrible idea’ appeared first on Physics World.

This episode features Charlotte Deane, who is executive chair of the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council – or EPSRC.

In conversation with Physics World’s Matin Durrani, Deane talks about her career in both academia and industry – and her leadership of the University of Oxford’s Protein Informatics Group.

Deane explains EPSRC’s role in funding research in physics and other sciences in the UK. She talks about the long-term strategy behind changes in funding priorities that were announced earlier this year. She also explains how EPSRC is supporting students and highlights the importance of quantum technologies and artificial intelligence to the future of the UK.

The post Inside EPSRC: Charlotte Deane on funding the future of UK physics appeared first on Physics World.

The camera that checked JWST’s clock is losing its funding.