Trump throws the shadow on the Nobels while the body economical in price prevents risk academic freedom | Donald Trump

One of the Nobel Prize award organizations warned that academic freedom is threatened in the United States and elsewhere, political interference risking sustainable negative effects – while scientists are preparing for next week’s price announcements.

Donald Trump introduced or proposed a group of measures in his second mandate that criticisms support hindering education and scientific research.

Ylva Engstrom, vice-president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the prices of chemistry, physics and economics, said that changes in the Trump administration were reckless.

“I think that in the short and long term, it can have devastating effects,” she told Reuters in an interview. “Academic freedom … is one of the pillars of the democratic system.”

The Trump administration denies stifling academic freedom, claiming that its measures will reduce waste and promote American scientific innovation.

Engstrom, which is also a member of the Board of Directors of the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Human Sciences, is itself on any of the three committees that will grant prices for chemistry, physics or economics.

Nobel prizes, considered by many to be the most prestigious scientific prices in the world, should be announced from next week, starting with the price of medicine or physiology on Monday and ending with the presentation of economy winners a week later.

The prices were created by the rich Swedish inventor of the dynamite Alfred Nobel and are also delivered for exceptional achievements in physics, chemistry, literature and peace. They are delivered with an amount of 11 million Swedish crowns ($ 1.2 million).

Trump has repeatedly said that he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, although experts say that his chances are very thin.

The American president proposed to reduce the budget of the National Institutes of Health, the largest world funder for biomedical research and wishes to dismantle the Ministry of Education, with the aim of reducing the role of the federal government in education in favor of more control by states.

Its administration also said that it would prioritize the concession of programs which would focus on “patriotic education”, and required that schools caps international registrations at 15%.

“For research, it will be a great drop in what American scientists can do and what they are allowed to do, what they can publish, for which they can get money. It will therefore have great effects,” said Engstrom, who is chairman of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences research policy.

The White House said in an email response that the United States was the largest scientific research fund in the world.

“The targeted cuts of the administration with waste, fraud and abuses in research and visa grant programs will strengthen the innovative and scientific domination of the Americans,” he said.

Trump also argued with several prestigious universities – some faculties can be among the Nobel Prize winners in the coming days – threatening to retain federal funds on issues such as pro -Palestinian demonstrations against the War of Israel in Gaza, the diversity of the campus and transgender policies.

The American economist of British origin Simon Johnson, who won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences in 2024 for his studies on how institutions affect prosperity, said that Trump’s actions would certainly hinder economic growth.

“These policies are absolutely, unambiguously, very negative and in particular for the creation of jobs,” said Johnson, professor at MIT Sloan School of Management.

“All engineering and science type activities, I think, will be affected,” he said. “Life sciences are a particularly dynamic sector at the moment and the NIH is, for any reason, to be targeted with really massive cuts.”