Crossroads of science

Newspapers and magazines generally use the last few weeks of every year to look back – and also look ahead. The flow of meaningful news slows down around the world as the December holiday season approaches, giving journalists an opportunity to reflect on the year gone by. Editors use the opportunity to pick out events that had the most impact. It is also a season of lists: of the best and the worst, of the most promising and the most overrated. These lists are often subjective choices, but they do serve a purpose.

The year 2025 has been a momentous one for science and technology. In the U.S., the world leader in science and technology, President Donald Trump cut back on research funding, with consequences for the entire world. The U.S. administration also changed the way science is funded. It reduced funding for climate change research, changed the language in which it reports on the research, placed restrictions on visas – which cramped labs from hiring overseas postdoctoral candidates – and more generally created a climate of mistrust for science in the country. Vaccines were questioned as a viable prevention of many serious diseases.

In the process, the U.S. administration disturbed a system it had created immediately after the Second World War, which had been adopted by several countries, including India. This system had created an open culture of research, with the aim of producing knowledge. Now, with techno-nationalism taking centre stage, science funding began to be driven by national priorities like semiconductors, quantum technologies, and artificial intelligence (AI). The U.S. withdrew from international agreements. Global cooperation declined in science. Europe, China and Canada gained scientific talent at the expense of the U.S.

It is safe to assume that this change in science funding, based on national priorities rather than the need to solve serious problems, is not temporary. While much of the old system has survived, and can come back in the future, the climate of distrust, reduced cooperation, and hostility to certain areas of science will likely remain – at least in the U.S. The post-World War system fashioned by the U.S. benefited the entire world. Now, the U.S. has effectively forsaken its leadership in science.

Simultaneously, China has caught up with the U.S. in science funding. In the face of technological sanctions, China has also increased its nationalistic approach towards funding science. Chinese science funding was already goal-driven and centralised, with universities having relatively little autonomy compared to the U.S. and Europe. In 2025, after the U.S. changed its approach, China has embraced techno-nationalism, focusing on strategic programmes. Meanwhile, Europe has been trying to preserve old-style open science as much as possible, even as it increased its attention and funding to strategic programmes in science. Many other countries, including India, Japan and South Korea, are trying to preserve the best of both worlds.

Continuing the trends of previous years, new tools have dramatically expanded the frontiers of science. Quantum, AI, and big data analysis have a strategic role, but also hold out possibilities for scientific research. Many investigations now start with data analysis with AI for discovery, followed by a theoretical framework, rather than starting with theory and then proceeding towards experiments. Quantum physics and engineering are bringing extraordinary possibilities for fundamental research. These developments have increased collaborations and accelerated the pace of scientific research. The next decade will see an interplay between these forces; this will influence the way the world tackles large problems.

Our Cover Story focuses on a few key developments that unfolded in science in 2025. They form a mixture: a representative sample of the best research published during the year, and some of the most impactful translations. They relate to five key areas: physics; quantum technologies; biology; chemistry and materials science; and climate change. The effort to put together this package made it clear that science continues to advance rapidly. It also provides a peek into the possibilities in the rest of this decade. How international science will weather the current storm is an open question. The Second World War and the U.S. response changed the world’s scientific culture for eight decades. The current transformation is unlikely to last that long, as the benefits of open science are there for everyone to see.

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