NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is to lay off some 550 employees as part of a restructuring that began in July. The action affects about 11% of JPL’s employees and represents the lab’s third downsizing in the past 20 months. When the layoffs are complete by the end of the year, the lab will have roughly 4500 employees, down from about 6500 at the start of 2024. A further 4000 employees have already left NASA during the past six months via sacking, retirement or voluntary buyouts.
Managed by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, JPL oversees scientific missions such as the Psyche asteroid probe, the Europa Clipper and the Perseverance rover on Mars. The lab also operates the Deep Space Network that keeps Earth in communication with unmanned space missions. JPL bosses already laid off about 530 staff – and 140 contractors – in February last year followed by another 325 people in November 2024.
JPL director Dave Gallagher insists, however, that the new layoffs are not related to the current US government shutdown that began on 1 October. “[They are] essential to securing JPL’s future by creating a leaner infrastructure, focusing on our core technical capabilities, maintaining fiscal discipline, and positioning us to compete in the evolving space ecosystem,” he says in a message to employees.
Judy Chu, Democratic Congresswoman for the constituency that includes JPL, is less optimistic. “Every layoff devastates the highly skilled and uniquely talented workforce that has made these accomplishments possible,” she says. “Together with last year’s layoffs, this will result in an untold loss of scientific knowledge and expertise that threatens the very future of American leadership in space exploration and scientific discovery.”
John Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington University and founder of the university’s Space Policy Institute, says that the cuts are a direct result of the Trump administration’s approach to science and technology. “The administration gives low priority to robotic science and exploration, and has made draconic cuts to the science budget; that budget supports JPL’s work,” he told Physics World. “With these cuts, there is not enough money to support a JPL workforce sized for more ambitious activities. Ergo, staff cuts.”
Almost 60 US scientific societies have signed a letter calling on the US government to “safeguard the integrity” of the peer-review process when distributing grants. The move is in to response to an executive order issued by the Trump administration in August that places accountability for reviewing and awarding new government grants in the hands of agency heads.
The executive order – Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking – calls on each agency head to “designate a senior appointee” to review new funding announcements and to “review discretionary grants to ensure that they are consistent with agency priorities and the national interest.”
The order outlines several previous grants that it says have not aligned with the Trump administration’s current policies, claiming that in 2024 more than a quarter of new National Science Foundation (NSF) grants went to diversity, equity, and inclusion and what it calls “other far-left initiatives”.
“These NSF grants included those to educators that promoted Marxism, class warfare propaganda, and other anti-American ideologies in the classroom, masked as rigorous and thoughtful investigation,” the order states. “There is a strong need to strengthen oversight and coordination of, and to streamline, agency grantmaking to address these problems, prevent them from recurring, and ensure greater accountability for use of public funds more broadly.”
Increasing burdens
In response, the 58 agencies – including the American Physical Society, the American Astronomical Society, the Biophysical Society, the American Geophysical Union and SPIE – have written to the majority and minority leaders of the US Senate and House of Representatives, to voice their concerns that the order “raises the possibility of politicization” in federally funded research.
“Our nation’s federal grantmaking ecosystem serves as the gold standard for supporting cutting-edge research and driving technological innovation worldwide,” the letters states. “Without the oversight traditionally applied by appropriators and committees of jurisdiction, this [order] will significantly increase administrative burdens on both researchers and agencies, slowing, and sometimes stopping altogether, vital scientific research that our country needs.”
The letter says more review and oversight is required by the US Congress before the order should go into effect, adding that the scientific community “is eager” to work with congress and the Trump administration “to strengthen our scientific enterprise”.
When we started our PhDs in physics at Imperial College London, our paths seemed conventional: a lot of lab work, conferences and a bit of teaching on the side. What we did not expect was that within a couple of years we would be talking with MPs in the House of Commons, civil servants in Whitehall and business leaders in industry. We found ourselves contributing to policy reports and organizing roundtable discussions alongside policy-makers, scientists and investors; focusing on quantum technology and its impact on the economy and society.
Our journey into science policy engagement started almost by chance. Back in 2022 we received an e-mail from Imperial‘s Centre for Quantum Engineering Science and Technology (QuEST) advertising positions for PhD students to support evidence-based policy-making. Seeing it as an opportunity to contribute beyond the lab, we both took up the challenge. It became an integral part of our PhD experience. What started as a part-time role alongside our PhDs turned into something much more than that.
Mixing PhDs and policy
Getting involved From left: Dimitrie Cielecki, Elizabeth Pasatembou and Michael Ho in the UK Houses of Parliament. (Courtesy: Craig Whittall)
Her interest in science policy engagement started out of curiosity and the desire to make a more immediate impact during her PhD. “Research can feel slow,” she says. “Taking up this role and getting involved in policy gave me the chance to use my expertise in a way that felt directly relevant, and develop new skills along the way. I also saw this as an opportunity to challenge myself and try something new.”
Pasatembou also worked on a collaborative project between the Imperial Deep Tech Entrepreneurship and QuEST, conducting interviews with investors to inform the design of a tailored curriculum on quantum technologies for the investors community.
Dimitrie Cielecki
Dimitrie Cielecki joined Imperial’s Complex Nanophotonics group as a PhD candidate in 2021. The opportunity to work in science policy came at a time when his research was evolving in new directions. “The first year of my PhD was not straightforward, with my project taking unexpected, yet exciting, turns in the realm of photonics, but shifting away from quantum,” explains Cielecki, whose PhD topic was spatio-temporal light shaping for metamaterials.
After seeing an advert for a quantum-related policy fellowship, he decided to jump in. “I didn’t even know what supporting policy-making meant at that point,” he says. “But I quickly became driven by the idea that my actions and opinions could have a quick impact in this field.”
Cielecki is now a quantum innovation researcher at the Institute for Deep Tech Entrepreneurship in the Imperial Business School, where he is conducting research on the correlations between technical progress, investors’ confidence and commercial success in the emerging quantum sector.
We joined QuEST and the Imperial Policy Forum – the university’s policy engagement programme – in 2022 and were soon sitting at the table with leading voices in the nascent quantum technology field. We had many productive conversations with senior figures from most quantum technology start-ups in the UK. We also found ourselves talking to leaders of the National Quantum Technology Programme (including its chair, Sir Peter Knight); to civil servants from the Office for Quantum in the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT); and to members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
Sometimes we would carry out tasks such as identifying the relevant stakeholders for an event or a roundtable discussion with policy implications. Other times we would do desk research and contribute to reports used in the policy-making process. For example, we responded to the House of Commons written evidence inquiry on Commercialising Quantum Technologies (2023) and provided analysis and insights for the Regulatory Horizons Council report Regulating Quantum Technology Applications (2024). We also moderated a day of roundtable discussions with quantum specialists for the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology’s briefing note Quantum Computing, Sensing and Communications (2025).
A two-way street
When studying science, we tend to think of it as a purely intellectual exercise, divorced from the real world. But we know that the field is applied to many areas of life, which is why countries, governments and institutions need policies to decide how science should be regulated, taught, governed and so on.
Science policy has two complimentary sides. First, it’s about how governments and institutions support and shape the practice of science through, for example, how funding is allocated. Second, science policy looks at how scientific knowledge informs and guides policy decisions in society, which also links to the increasingly important area of evidence-informed policy-making. These two dimensions are of course linked – science policy connects the science and its applications to regulation, economics, strategy and public value.
Quantum policy specifically focuses on the frameworks, strategies and regulations that shape how governments, industries and research institutions develop and deploy quantum technologies. Many countries have published national quantum strategies, which include technology roadmaps tied to government investments. These outline the infrastructure needed to speed up the adoption of quantum technology – such as facilities, supply chains and a skilled workforce.
In the UK, the National Quantum Technology Programme (NQTP) – a government-led initiative that brings together industry, academia and government – has pioneered the idea of co-ordinated national efforts for the development of quantum technologies. Set up in 2014, the programme has influenced other countries to adopt a similar approach. The NQTP has been immensely successful in bringing together different groups from both the public and private sectors to create a productive environment that advances quantum science and technology. Co-operation and communication have been at the core of this programme, which has led to the UK’s 10-year National Quantum Strategy. Launched in 2023, this details specific projects to help accelerate technological progress and make the country a leading quantum-enabled economy. But that won’t happen unless we have mechanisms to help translate science into innovation, resilient supply chains, industry-led standardization, stable regulatory frameworks and a trained workforce.
Up for discussion Quantum topics being debated as national policy include quantum cryptography and security. (Courtesy: iStock/wavebreakmedia)
Quantum technologies can bring benefits for national security, from advanced sensing to secure communications. But their dual-use nature also poses potential threats as the technology matures, particularly with the prospect of cryptographically relevant quantum computers – machines powerful enough to break encryption. To mitigate these risks in a complex geopolitical landscape, governments need tailored regulations, whether that’s preparing for the transition to post-quantum cryptography (making communication safe from powerful code-cracking quantum computers) or controlling exports of sensitive products that could compromise security.
Like artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, there are also ethical considerations to take into account when developing quantum technologies. In particular, we need policies to ensure transparency, inclusivity and equitable access. International organizations such as UNESCO and the World Economic Forum have already started integrating quantum into their policy agendas. But as quantum technology is such a rapidly evolving new field, we need to strike a balance between innovation and regulation. Too many rules can stifle innovation but, on the other hand, policy needs to keep up with innovation to avoid any future serious incidents.
Language barriers
Policy engagement involves collaborating with three sets of stakeholders – academia; industry and investors; and policy-makers. But as we started to work with these groups, we noticed each had a different way of communicating, creating a kind of language barrier. Scientists love throwing around equations, data and figures, often using highly technical terminology. Industry leaders and investors, on the other hand, talk in terms of how innovations could affect business performance and profitability, and what the risk for their investments could be. As for policy-makers, they focus more on how to distinguish between reality and hype, and look at budgets and regulations.
We found ourselves acting as cross-sector translators, seeking to bridge the gap between the three groups. We had to listen to each stakeholder’s requirements and understand what they needed to know. We then had to reframe technical insights and communicate them in a relevant and useful way – without simplifying the science. Once we grasped everyone’s needs and expectations, we offered relevant information, putting it into context for each group so everyone was on the same page.
To help us do this, we considered the stakeholders as “inventor”, “funder”, “innovator” or “regulator”. As quantum technology is such a rapidly growing sector, the groupings of academia, industry and policy-makers are so entangled that the roles are often blurred. This alternative framework helped us to identify the needs and objectives of the people we were working with and to effectively communicate our science or evidence-backed messages.
Finding the right people
During our time as policy fellows, we were lucky to have mentors to teach us how to navigate this quantum landscape. In terms of policy, Craig Whittall from the Imperial Policy Forum was our guide on protocol and policy scoping. We worked closely with QuEST management – Peter Haynes and Jess Wade – to organize discussions, collect evidence from researchers, generate policy leads, and formulate insights or recommendations. We also had the pleasure of working with other PhD students, including Michael Ho, Louis Chen and Victor Lovic, who shared the same passion for bridging quantum research and policy.
Having access to world-leading scientists and a large pool of early-career researchers spread across all departments and faculties, facilitated by the network in QuEST, made it easier for us to respond to policy inquiries. Early on, we mapped out what quantum-related research is going on at Imperial and created a database of the researchers involved. This helped inform the university’s strategy regarding quantum research, and let us identify who should contribute to the various calls for evidence by government or parliament offices.
Getting started Imperial College London encourages its researchers – established and early-career – to get involved in shaping policy. From left: Dimitrie Cielecki, Michael Ho, Louis Chen, Elizabeth Pasatembou. (Courtesy: Elizabeth Pasatembou)
PhD students are often treated as learners rather than contributors. But our experience showed that with the right support and guidance, early-career researchers (ECRs) such as ourselves can make real impact by offering fresh perspectives and expertise. We are the scientists, innovators or funders of the future so there is value in training people like us to understand the bigger picture as we embark on our careers.
To encourage young researchers to get involved in policy, QuEST and DSIT recently organized two policy workshops for ECR quantum tech specialists. Civil servants from the Office for Quantum explained their efforts and priorities, while we answered questions about our experience – the aim being to help ECRs to engage in policy-making, or choose it as a career option.
In April 2025 QuEST also launched an eight-week quantum primer for policy-makers. The course was modelled on a highly successful equivalent for AI, and looked to help policy-makers make more technically informed policy discussions. The first cohort welcomed civil servants from across government, and it was so highly reviewed a second course will be running from October 2025.
Our experience with QuEST has shown us the importance of scientists taking an active role in policy-making. With the quantum sector evolving at a formidable rate, it is vital that a framework is in place to take research from the lab to society. Scientists, industry, investors and policy-makers need to work together to create regulations and policies that will ensure the responsible use of quantum technologies that will benefit us all.
Connexion
