US universities have become the envy of the world, he argues, because of their ability to draw budding scientists and scholars from other countries. He worries about the signal the Trump administration is sending internationally, especially as China continues to invest massively in its own research universities.This interview with Reif has been condensed and edited.This summer, the Trump administration put out a report that called for overhauling how the government funds science and technology research. It’s called “Science: A New Golden Age.” What was your reaction to it?It didn’t make me very happy. There was some good news there. The author of the report does say that basic science is important and has made a big impact in what America has become in the last 80 years. It also talks about how important science is for the future of the US and for the competition with China. But then it becomes very vague, in my view. Where is the science going to take place if it’s that important? Clearly, the federal government has been attacking research universities, canceling projects. There is a proposal to cut the research budget. So, clearly, the federal government is not too happy with university research. The report itself talks about how universities are basically out of the times. We were built to do research in a different era, and things have changed. We have too much bureaucracy, and so the author is not too keen on university research either. Is he trying to say that he does not want universities to do research? Is he just simply throwing that out for others to figure out to propose solutions to his question? That part is very uncomfortable. It is basically attacking and destroying a system of research that has been so successful without really explaining what is wrong and needs fixing, and replacing it with something that is not clear what it is. There is talk about a new research model. Something completely different. If it’s not a national lab or a company or a university, then what is it? There is something unique about a university that companies do not have and national labs do not have, which is students. If we believe that science is important, we have to have a place where we create the scientists of the future. We don’t want to use today’s scientists and then be done with it. We need them to continue to be doing science. Where do they get trained? Where do they learn how to do research? If you have never done research, you have no idea how to do research. So we need the research in universities not just to advance exploratory stuff that doesn’t happen in other places but also to use students to train them how to be scientists themselves. We are seeing American universities falling in international rankings, and several Chinese universities are surpassing many American universities. How much does that concern you?It is a serious concern. The US has been very strong thanks to the fact that we have federal funding coming to universities, supporting the most sophisticated and complicated exploratory work that can be thought of. If you look back at the last 80 years, the number of Nobel prizes coming to American scientists has been much higher than before. The reason that has happened has a lot to do with attracting scientists from other places or students who want to become scientists. They are being attracted by this model in America, in which you have federal funding supporting you for the best ideas and working with the best people in the world. That has attracted them. If the word is out that America is no longer that place, then scientists not only stop coming or will stop coming, but they are leaving. And in fact, if you just look at the last year or so, a large number of scientists have left America. Many of them are going back to China because they felt like they had to, and they’re being recruited heavily. Others go to Europe. That brain drain is extremely damaging. We have a situation in which we are becoming less and less attractive. We are being perceived as doing less and less science because the government doesn’t seem to be interested in funding that. Other places are really doing exactly what the US did to make these universities the places they are. China is doing exactly what we have been doing, but they are doing it much better and much more aggressively today. So that is changing the balance of the quality of the work coming out of China. Their publications are the highest quality. We have been ignoring that situation for quite a while. This is not just the Trump administration, but this administration has actually accelerated the decline with the very poor PR we’re getting by these kinds of decisions. What is extremely sad to me is that it’s all self-inflicted. How can research universities navigate these turbulent times? Well, there is no way they can do it on their own. The funding they get from the federal government cannot be replenished in any other way. States don’t have the money to replace federal funding. Companies are funding universities quite a bit, but they fund research that fits the road map of the company. They want to support that research so they’ll be ready by the time they need it. It’s not quite exploratory. What’s good about exploratory research in universities is that they create new industries, they create new things. Companies cannot replace the federal government. There is no money to replace what we’re getting from the federal government, so universities themselves cannot do much about it. They’re going to have to shrink quite a bit to be able to support what they’re doing today. Top universities that have benefited from endowment returns and now they have to pay endowment tax. I don’t see how they can figure this out. It’s just tough times for universities, and that means a non-ending decline for the US.What would you say to a Trump official who says to you, “We don’t trust universities; they’ve become too political”?I’ve been trying to be in front of audiences to speak about my views on this, and I’ve favored audiences that I know won’t be receptive. I describe things like this to them, and what I hear back are talking points. They are not engaging with what I’m saying and disagreeing with me. They say, “Why are you asking for more money when you raise tuition much more than the cost of living every year?” “Why do you ask for more money when you don’t accept conservative speakers on campus?” We cannot have a dialogue. There is no dialogue. People have not told me “It’s not true that China universities are better. I can show you this.” Nobody’s arguing that with me. They say, “Oh, universities, you are bad people. You are charging too much for tuition. You’re communist.” There is no way to have a dialogue. I can argue extensively about the nuances of the sticker price versus what you actually pay, and so forth. Those are nuances that people don’t want to understand. They don’t care to understand. They are being fed a bunch of talking points, and they are happy to repeat them.What else could university presidents and those who care about higher education be doing?Sally Kornbluth, MIT’s president, wrote a great op-ed in The Boston Globe a few weeks ago, explaining what the federal government is doing. It was a very brave piece. And I saw recently Harvard president Alan Garber also said something along those lines. But you know, this is a year-plus after the presidency began. This has been going on for quite a while, and it would be great if college presidents could simply say what’s so, together. It’s very hard to do that. Every person has a board, and every university wants to stay out of the frame and not be seen. Just hiding under the table to protect themselves. That strategy is just not working. But who am I to say? It’s very easy for me to mumble stuff like that when I’m not sitting in that chair. But I think we just have to say what’s so, and try to explain to the general public, explain to people in Congress, and be willing to say that.The main issue is: How do we reach the general public? Voters just don’t understand the complexities of a healthy university ecosystem with healthy research in the country. Universities generate companies and jobs. Those are nuances that they just don’t understand, and nobody’s presenting it to them. They say, “Why do I have to just pay so much for gas or for milk, and the university can get off so easily, and they want more and more money?” It’s a very tough message to sell. The only thing you can do is just start talking to the general public and explain the value of job creation, the value of companies, the value of ideas, and so forth. Hilary Burns can be reached at hilary.burns@globe.com.