Cfrtjryk

Has federally funded research at universities and work done at the national labs in the United States been halted due to the government shutdown?

If so, what typically happens then?

Do researchers just stay at home and not show up to work? Or do they show up, and do something similar to what you would see at a labor strike, e.g. megaphones, demonstrations, make demands?

Thanks,

Has federally funded research at universities and work done at the national labs in the United States been halted due to the government shutdown?

The current shutdown affects federal employees - and even then, not all government departments or agencies are affected. In particular, the Department of Energy, which funds the DOE National Labs, already had an approved spending bill, so DOE is unaffected for now. However, many other institutions, including NIST, NASA labs, and the Smithsonian have had to cease a lot of their work. Some activities are considered mission critical, and can continue, but that's getting into the specifics. See e.g. this Washington Post article.

University researchers are not directly affected, since they are not federal employees*. Even public universities in the US tend to be on the state level. However, there can be a large indirect effect since e.g. NSF, a large funding agency, has shut down. If this shutdown is anything like the 2013 one, this will not only delay grant applications, but also grant decisions, causing a lot of uncertainty, hiring delays, and lost research productivity.

*The military academies might be an exception, but since the Department of Defense had its spending bill approved they probably wouldn't be affected anyway.

Do researchers just stay at home and not show up to work? Or do they show up, and do something similar to what you would see at a labor strike, e.g. megaphones, demonstrations, make demands?

Generally the former - at least at the largest of the affected places security would (rather sensibly) be considered a mission critical operation, and security would be instructed to stop people from going to work. There tends to be some protests, e.g. at the White House during the shutdowns, but I doubt these are dominated by researchers. There are many, many others affected - some 800 000 government employees in total, many who'd be hit harder than your average federally employed researcher.

The answer of Massimo Ortolano is correct as it applies to federal government run (owned) labs. But the situation for Universities is different. These are not government owned or run in any sense. Government employees are not allowed to work during a shutdown unless they are required to work (being "emergency employees"). But faculty members aren't federal government employees, so they may continue to work as usual.

Universities get grants from the government to carry on some research. The funding for those grants may already be "in hand" in the university. If not, checks won't be written so the flow of funds will stop until the "crisis" ends. This latter might cause some disruption, but in many places the university will just carry on. University professors and researchers will continue to get paid as usual. Money to support laboratories may be problematic if it goes on too long, but that is unlikely.

Note that the US federal government fulfills its contracts. To do otherwise would be so disruptive that the US would fall immediately to "developing nations" or even "pariah" status. The main issue will be timing of payments.

However, if a project requires the presence of or contact with government employees, they won't be available and it would be illegal for them to participate in most cases (unless it is required...)

I'm not in the US, but I have friends and colleagues who work for a major national institute in the US.

They shut down the experiments and stay at home, temporarily unpaid: in fact, they wouldn't be even allowed to enter the premises. They don't do demonstrations.