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Crowdfunding for research study on the impact of US government censorship

  • 1.  Crowdfunding for research study on the impact of US government censorship

    Posted Wed September 02, 2026 04:31 PM

    Hi everyone

    As some of you know, I'm part of a small grassroots volunteer group -- #DefendResearch -- which is raising awareness of the Trump administration's censorship of research, and working to fight back against it. Earlier this year we started collaborating with @Rob Johnson and his colleagues at Research Consulting to develop what we believe is the first systematic study of the impact of this censorship, focusing initially on public health and epidemiology. Rob and co ran the first phase of this work for free, and have kept going at their own expense since then. We are now trying to crowdsource funding for the project, with the goal of raising $25k (about half the anticipated total cost). We plan to make the results of the study available in October, ahead of the US midterms. It will be published open access under a CC-BY license and I'll share it here, along with a toolkit we're developing to help promote it. 

    I wouldn't normally post about a fundraising effort, but I believe this is something that will resonate with many of you who care about the damage being done to the research community that we all serve, so I very much hope you'll consider making a donation and/or, when the time comes, help spread the word.

    If you'd like to learn more about the research project, please see the #DefendResearch projects page. We're also holding a free webinar, From Anecdote to Evidence, at 11am ET on September 17, when Rob will be sharing some initial findings from the study. And, of course, please feel free to contact me, Rob, or my fellow #DefendResearch colleague @Sara Rouhi if you have any questions.

    Thank you so much!



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    Alice Meadows
    Independent Consultant
    Open Research Ecosystem (ORE) Consulting
    Brookline MA
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  • 2.  RE: Crowdfunding for research study on the impact of US government censorship

    Posted Thu September 03, 2026 08:56 AM

    Thanks for highlighting our work on this @Alice Meadows, all support is gratefully and I'm happy to answer any questions about this work. Please do join us for the webinar on September 17 too!



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    Rob Johnson
    Director
    Research Consulting UK
    NOTTINGHAM
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