ANU has lost US funding thanks to its ‘woke agenda’ and now the CSIRO is under pressure from across the Pacific. Read the full Trump questionnaire here.
The tendrils of US president Donald Trump’s anti-progressive policies are working their way into the Australian research sector with seven local universities and the CSIRO reporting pressure from the US government via a questionnaire described as “bizarre and intrusive”.
Australian researchers received $386 million in funding from the US government in 2024 alone. That may not sound like much, but it equates to almost half of the Australian Research Council’s budget.
Since 2020, almost 2800 patents have been filed that listed both American and Australian research, including 853 in IT and computing and 540 in biological and clinical sciences.
The US government, which is punishing its nation’s own universities that are not protective enough, in its opinion, of Jewish interests, is now aggressively pursuing Trump’s anti-“woke” agenda in other countries.
The questionnaire sent to Australian institutions includes the following questions:
- Does your organization have a clear policy prohibiting any collaboration, funding, or support for entities that advocate or implement policies contrary to US government interests, national security, and sovereignty?
- Can you confirm that your organization does not work with entities associated with communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties, or any party that espouses anti-American beliefs?
- Can you confirm that your organization has not received ANY funding from the PRC (including Confucius Institutes and/or partnered with Chinese state or non-state actors), Russia, Cuba, or Iran?
- Can you confirm that this is no DEI project or DEI elements of the project?
- Can you confirm this is not a climate or “environmental justice” project or include such elements?
- Does this project take appropriate measures to protect women and to defend against gender ideology as defined in the below Executive Order? (Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government)
- What impact does this project have on protecting religious minorities, promoting religious freedom, and combatting Christian prosecution?
You can read the entire questionnaire here.
Seven Australian universities, all believed to be members of the Group of Eight (University of Melbourne, the Australian National University, the University of Sydney, the University of Queensland, the University of Western Australia, the University of Adelaide, Monash University and UNSW Sydney) have been sent the questionnaire. ANU has confirmed to the Canberra Times that it has lost American funding due to “a woke agenda”.
The latest target is the CSIRO, with a spokesperson saying:
“CSIRO has a number of touchpoints with the US government as part of our research portfolio.
“We are aware of a small number of researchers who have received a questionnaire, and we are determining an appropriate response.
“As the situation is still developing, it would be premature to speculate on how the changes in the US will affect CSIRO’s US collaborations and partnerships. However, CSIRO has not received formal advice that our science collaborations will be impacted.”
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The National Tertiary Education Union has called on the federal government to “push back”.
“The federal government must push back on the Trump administration’s blatant foreign interference in our independent research in the strongest possible terms,” said Alison Barnes, national president of the NTEU.
“A foreign government seeking to destroy public education globally must have zero influence on what Australian researchers and their international colleagues work on.
“Donald Trump’s hateful agenda is racist, transphobic and misogynistic. The idea of research funding being tied to any of those values is sickening.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had no interest in engaging with the subject when asked about it by the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:
“My focus is on what happens here in Australia, and what happens in tomorrow’s budget,” he said.