My hot take: Universities and medical centers need to get *MUCH* better at outreach and explaining the benefits of funding independent research to the public.
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100%. All the more reason for us to start telling our story more widely. And to find professionals who know how to make it resonate with constituencies we don't know well.
Frankly, Universities suck at the types of public outreach we need right now. We haven't built it because we haven't had to. The case for supporting science is just *so* strong from pretty much every perspective that it has enjoyed bipartisan support for decades.
Most importantly, we need to explain to the public why they benefit from what we do and how it impacts their lives. Make sure that absolutely everyone in the US knows about the economic impact, cures for children's diseases and all of the other benefits to society.
Universities need to band together, hire excellent public relations teams, advertising firms, lobbyists. We need to run advertisements that tell the audience how they benefit. Adds need to run everywhere, including and especially, Fox News.
This will be a long and expensive fight. There are lots of sympathetic people out there. But to win, we need to engage with folks who know how to tell our stories to a general audience. We need to work together to make the case for science clear to absolutely everyone in the US.
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