Peer review: The end of an American institution?

Since taking office in January 2025, President Donald Trump and his administration have moved to dismantle many of the systems and institutions that support scientific peer review in the US. The current administration has dismissed scientists from federal grant review panels, issued an executive order placing agency grantmaking in the hands of political appointees, demanded that scientific journal editors document how they promote "acceptance of competing viewpoints," and asked universities to pledge that they will support "the priorities of the US government" in order to receive federal research funding. All of these steps could fundamentally reshape and weaken scientific peer review in the United States—an institution that is far younger than many observers assume. Although the referee is a figure with origins in Europe, it was the Cold War US where the idea that "peer review" was a prerequisite for scientific legitimacy first took hold. The massive post-World War II expansion in federal science funding led to the creation of new funding bodies and new grant programs that solicited advice from scientists on which proposals to fund. In the 1970s, as legislators from both political parties began attacking federal science spending in the midst of an economic downturn, both Democrats and Republicans argued that scientists should not have so much influence over funding decisions. In response, US scientists argued that "peer review" was the only valid method of choosing between competing grant proposals. That idea of peer review as a requirement for scientific legitimacy took hold with remarkable speed and science-based peer review is now a global institution. Peer review's future in the US, however, seems increasingly in doubt.