Originally published by Forbes on June 2, 2025, this article by John Drake is reposted here with permission from the author. Read the original piece in Forbes.
Dr. France Córdova has held some of the most consequential positions in American science. An astrophysicist with a career spanning four decades, she has served as NASA’s Chief Scientist, president of Purdue University, Chancellor of the University of California Riverside, and most recently, Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) — the top federal funder of non-biomedical basic research in the U.S. Today, she leads the Science Philanthropy Alliance, a nonprofit devoted to growing private support for basic science.
That role has placed her at the crossroads of two major forces shaping American research: a federal government increasingly unable or unwilling to fund long-term scientific discovery, and a rising movement in private philanthropy aimed at strengthening the scientific enterprise — even as the long-term sustainability of public funding remains in question.
“All of science is underfunded,” Córdova said in a recent conversation. “And now we really mean it” — a wry acknowledgment that while greater investment has long been in the nation’s economic interest, the situation has deteriorated to the point where even a historically inadequate budget would now be considered a win.
The Science Philanthropy Alliance was established in 2013 by a group of major foundations concerned that years of flat federal budgets had put American science at risk. When Córdova completed her term at NSF in 2020, she joined the Alliance first as an advisor, and soon after as president. Under her leadership, the organization has grown to include around 40 philanthropic partners and played an advisory role in shaping transformative gifts — including a recent major endowment by the Leinweber Foundation to support theoretical physics.
The need for such work, Córdova argues, has never been more urgent.
“Today, a flat budget would be a great budget,” she said. “Things are going south.”
A Fragile Pillar of Leadership
Córdova is blunt about the risks. The scientific enterprise that helped make the U.S. a global leader after World War II — one built on public investment, open collaboration, and an ethos of discovery — is under pressure from political polarization, disinvestment and short-term thinking. And while philanthropy plays an increasingly important role, she warns that it is no substitute for government support.
“There’s this idea that philanthropy and industry can step in to fill the gap,” she said. “But the numbers just don’t add up. Even if every dollar of philanthropy for science went into replacing public funding — which it won’t — it still wouldn’t be enough.”
This is not just a budgetary concern. The stakes, as she sees them, are existential. Scientific leadership is not a luxury but a national imperative — essential to economic prosperity, public health, national security and cultural vitality. In short, it is part of the scaffolding of a functioning democracy.
“We’ve come so far,” she said, reflecting on the country’s founding ideals and the postwar scientific renaissance that followed. “It’s kind of hard to believe that it could be that fragile, that we could just take it apart by disinvestment.”
Beyond the Balance Sheet
Córdova also emphasizes that science holds value far beyond its economic utility. It inspires. It deepens our understanding of ourselves, of our home planet and its many worlds—from deep sea to rainforest to mountaintop — and of our place in the universe. For those who are curious, science offers a way of seeing — a path that leads from wonder through thought to discovery. For Córdova, that path began with a moment of astonishment: watching a television program about neutron stars as a young woman, she was struck by the immensity of the cosmos and felt the pull of a question that would guide her for a lifetime — how does the universe work? “On a cold, dark night,” she said, “there’s nothing that’s more wonderful than going outside and just wondering: what’s that up there?”