We live in times of crux and fissures in life and geopolitics. The Greenland episode—and Venezuela—reminds us just how uncertain everything is and how easily it can change at any moment. In parallel, these days in our own country we have also seen how infrastructure only truly 'exists' when it fails—especially due to the (far) right. The Adamuz train accident has left more than forty dead, with high-speed rail traffic disrupted and an entire country in a state of shock.
We can understand science under the same logic. Research is also an infrastructure, albeit less visible, more distributed, and with effects that arrive late. When it malfunctions, there is no immediate noise like a derailed train; there are silences: projects that never get off the ground, careers that stall, data that isn't updated, international consortia that lose momentum... And, in such an interconnected global system, a year of government in the United States can end up being a year of friction half the planet.
The first major factor is funding and, above all, uncertainty. According to NatureThe US Congress is preparing to reject the "enormous and unprecedented" cuts to science that the Trump administration had proposed. However, the same text underscores two things that explain why international damage may still occur: first, civilian investment in R&D is still projected to decline; second, it remains to be seen whether the executive branch will ultimately spend the money "as" Congress dictates. Furthermore, changes to the grant awarding model could put pressure on the scientific workforce, making calls for proposals more competitive (and therefore harder to access) and driving talent away, even if the budget apparently holds.
The second vector is the withdrawal from international cooperationOn January 7, Trump announced the withdrawal of more than 60 international organizations, including 32 UN agencies. Among those affected are key players in global knowledge and governance: IPCC (climate), IPBES and IUCN (biodiversity and conservation), as well as the renewable energy agency IRENA. The institutions maintain that their work will continue, but the forcefulness of this withdrawal has seemingly invisible side effects: it's not just a matter of money, but of the message and the example set; and, moreover, it could create leadership vacuums that other actors could fill. Looking ahead, there is a tension that must be calmly maintained: politics can shake the scientific infrastructure, but science does not stop. It arrives in 2026 with new technologies These are developments worth keeping on our radar, as they have the potential to redefine health, energy, and security: xenotransplantation accelerated by gene editing; mRNA therapeutics beyond vaccines; AI-powered weather and climate modeling; new nuclear energy with small modular reactors; brain mapping; space and ocean exploration; and quantum computing that is beginning to make progress in error correction. The various infrastructures that help advance society as a whole and improve citizens' lives—such as the railway network, the public healthcare system, and science—need care and stable funding to remain effective and limit future problems and accidents. Therefore, the question is not whether infrastructure is important—it is—but whether we choose to remember this before it fails again.
