US Scientists Flee Abroad as Research Funding Cuts Deepen: Nature (nature.com)
- Reference: 0177086973
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/04/22/1429255/us-scientists-flee-abroad-as-research-funding-cuts-deepen-nature
- Source link: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01216-7
The exodus accelerated in March as the administration intensified science cuts, with job views spiking 68% year-over-year. Applications to Canadian institutions increased 41%, while interest from Canadians in US positions plummeted 13%. Recent months have seen more than 200 federal HIV/AIDS research grants abruptly terminated, cuts to NIH COVID-19 funding revealed, and a $400 million reduction in research grants at Columbia University. "To see this big drop in views and applications to the US -- and the similar rise in those looking to leave -- is unprecedented," said James Richards, who leads Global Talent Solutions at Springer Nature.
European institutions are capitalizing on the talent migration. Aix-Marseille University launched its "Safe Place for Science" initiative with $17.2 million to sponsor researchers, while Germany's Max Planck Society created a Transatlantic Program offering positions to scientists "no longer able to work in the United States." The trend extends beyond Europe, with US-based views of Chinese science positions increasing 30% in the first quarter of 2025.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01216-7
Re: (Score:2)
Butt hurt, are you?
Consider that there's far more research than your Fox News memes going on in the US that directly benefits you and those around you. Loss of scientific leadership makes the US a second or third world nation while you're worrying about your fringey fears.
Science leads to products, products often lead to better lives. Soon you'll have your brutalist male urges satisfied, but will buy your products from the EU and China-- who'll have the patents, IP, and wealth.
Re: "researcher" (Score:2)
Yarp.
Re:"researcher" (Score:5, Informative)
> You have non-Fox examples of great science that's lost funding, yes?
I do. Here's a whole list [1]https://airtable.com/appjhyo9N... [airtable.com] .
[1] https://airtable.com/appjhyo9NTvJLocRy/shrNto1NNp9eJlgpA?Ffj6Q%3Aview=plasNjSudszRmPvEo&Ffj6Q=sfsu5EXJFb3wsiCXk&Ffj6Q%3Asort=eyJwZWx1WnZkdFBydlpJRGhLZyI6W119
Re: (Score:2)
It's sad that it's staring you in the face but you're unable to break out of the mind prison that you've built for yourself.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you have an IV drip of Kultist Kool-aid?
Are you really trying to say how it's a good thing that researchers are leaving the country because it's become an inhospitable environment for doing research?
You need to re-evaluate some very core thoughts around long-term risks. Oh, and you also need to stop posting the absolutely most ridiculous propaganda talking points - if we want to see that bullshit, we'll head over to Fox Noise like you do.
It's real (Score:5, Interesting)
I work for a big national lab and I can make a few observations:
a) Postdocs that have already accepted a job are having second thoughts. Statistically speaking, the likelihood of being detained by the ICE with a valid visa is probably about the same as the airplane suffering a catastrophic issue, but for human perception this does not matter. US is just not attractive any more. Nobody wants to enter a country where you are looked up with suspicion. The fact that the salary just dropped 10% in EUR is also not promising.
b) You would be shocked just how much US research institutions rely on foreigners. It seems immigrants support both ends of the economic chain: slaughterhouses and agri jobs on one end and high tech jobs at the other with natives filling in the middle. There are grants for which you need to be a citizen and they are so much easier to get simply because there are so few of them.
c) The mood is totally depressed. We had cuts this year despite CR with draconiam further cuts next year. And I'm talking about physics, not sociology of woke people. Everybody is sniffing for an exit.
Re:It's real (Score:5, Interesting)
The government is aggressively anti-education/pro-fundamentalist Christianity. It's isolationist and racist. It's economically self-destructive. It's anti-press.
To be a scientist in the US right now is to wonder if your funding will be blocked because you are researching something the government has decided is bad, wondering if you're going to be kicked out of the country (if you're not a white native-born with an English-sounding name who attends the right church regularly and never says a bad word about Trump), if you're going to get paid next year or be able to afford to live on what you do get paid, and if you'll be permitted to publish if your research gets to that point.
If you're a boffin or boffin-in-training and you're NOT trying to get out right now, you're probably not bright enough to have excelled in your field anyway.
Re: (Score:1)
Get out to where? The alternative options believe IQ doesn't exist, press should be a part of government, and of course socialism, where professors usually find themselves assigned to sweep the street.
Re: (Score:2)
Put down the koolaid. The world outside the US is not the hellhole you've been told it is.
Re: It's real (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it just me, or are we also seeing an increase in catastrophic air disasters?
Re: It's real (Score:2)
I was just thinking the same thing.
Re: It's real (Score:2)
> US is just not attractive any more. Nobody wants to enter a country where you are looked up with suspicion.
But Trump has such a friendly warm glow about him! They won't come to the US simply for a chance to bask in the light that is your president?
Re: Warm Glow (Score:2)
> But Trump has such a friendly warm glow about him!
That is called Global Warming,
Government Sponsored Research (Score:4, Interesting)
As a Libertarian, I don't suppose to support tax payer funded research. Mainly because such research leads to patents and other protections that are held not by the public for the public good, but rather commercial for profit corporations.
IMHO, the best case for solving THIS issue is tax patent holders for their patents they enforce, as a TAX. Make it steep. Stop paying the tax, the patent goes public domain. This solves a whole bunch of abuses. Make private research funded patents less taxed, and those discovery/inventions that had public funded (tax payer) at the highest rates. Tax the rich, but make it avoidable, just release to the public domain.
The protection of intellectual property ought to come at a cost.
Re: Government Sponsored Research (Score:3)
I can't believe I'm defending capitalism but why would a drug company invest billions of dollars developing a medication if someone else is allowed to make all the money off of it as soon as it is on the market, thus ensuring the billion dollars is all a loss?
Re: (Score:2)
I am not a capitalist. I'm free enterprise, the free exchange of goods and services kind of guy. Subtle but distinct difference.
If one wants the protection of Patents (which I'm 100% okay with), one ought to pay for that privilege, in taxes. 100% completely voluntary with the benefits of patents expiring when nobody wants to pay the tax. Mutually beneficial Exchange being key component.
Re: (Score:2)
For exactly the same reason as a carpenter designs a table that everyone can copy.
Re: (Score:3)
> the best case for solving THIS issue is tax patent holders for their patents they enforce, as a TAX. Make it steep.
Isn't that what income tax already does?
Re: (Score:2)
The Constitution supports the opposite: Give inventors time to capitalize on their invention. What is it, like, 4 years long if one doesn't pay the maintenance fee? And some small inventors (me) are working from their houses, haven't made any money yet and can't cough up cash every time a megacorp wants to take them to court because their lawyers are bored.
As far as government grants go, yes, I completely agree, a simple stipulation/contract up front might handle that. I am not in that world so I don'
This is what America voted for (Score:2)
'nuff said
Re: (Score:1)
This is somebody Making America Great Again. I can laugh - I'm an ocean away in Europe. Prices to here are down 20-30% on AliExpress for the few items I checked. Right now it seems he's making something else.
Welcome to Canada! (Score:2)
We'll take all you've got! We know what makes a country stronger in the long run.
Re: (Score:3)
> You can fund the research into gay frogs for a few decades... we look forward to hearing about your findings.
If you think that's what scientific research does, you're a complete idiot.
Sorry to have to break that to you.
Re: (Score:2)
While you enjoy the Canadian invention known as insulin... you know, the stuff you'll need because of your atrociously unhealthy diet as your government pulls back from food safety and public health.
The actual numbers matter (Score:3)
The percentages can be deceiving. A 60% increase in scientists leaving the US? I need the real numbers to assess. If last year 10 scientists left the US and this year is 16, it's totally irrelevant.
If last year was 10,000 leaving and this year it's 16,000, that's a major sign that the country is decaying, and I'll be packing my bags and polishing my resume, but I probably should have been doing that stuff last year.
Once a brain drain sets in, it's usually a doom loop for the country. But, US scientists will have a hell of a time finding other STEM positions. Have you seen how much we spend on R&D compared to other countries? No other country even comes close. Every unhappy liberal US scientist currently wants to go to Canada. They'll all be competing over the 15 university openings and the 25 national lab researcher positions. Their R&D budget is about 1/30th of ours, if I did the rough calculation properly. Also, if anyone thinks the US is hostile to immigrants, they'll be in for a big shock if they try to emmigrate somewhere else. Most of those "enlightened" countries are wwaaaayyyyyy more closed to immigrants than us. Even under Trump, the US is pretty open to migrants by worldwide standards.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_research_and_development_spending
Re: (Score:2)
"major sign that the country is decaying"
That sign was a $36T National Debt.
It can be handled 2 ways:
1) The way we're trying to handle it, by cutting spending as much as possible without impacting our SS and MC recipients, or
2) Just let everything slide until the debt is so big we can't hope to even make the interest payments, let along the principle. Total catastrophic failure will result, the economic collapse will be total, and unlike the great depression, when a huge number of family farms made sustai
Re: The actual numbers matter (Score:2)
There is a third option re the movie Anericathon.
Re: The actual numbers matter (Score:2)
*Americathon. Fuck you /. Not being able to edit in 2025.
Re:The actual numbers matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Usually you need a *lot* of numbers to understand a real world situation. Both total numbers and marginal changes are part of the big picture.
Almost certainly we aren't losing a significant fraction of our scientists going by raw numbers. But changes at the margins tell you something to. I'm sure very few senior scientists who have houses and families in school are looking to go overseas, but I can tell you that young scientists I know starting their careers are looking at Europe as a better option than the US. The ones who actually go will be small in number, but it'll be the ones who can get a position anywhere in the world. If you had a choice of a postdoctoral fellowship in German and the US, and you weren't sure the US fellowship would be funded for a full five years, why would you go to the US? If funding for scientific research is drying up in the US, why would you start your career here?
Which brings me to the next point: numbers don't always tell the full story. The number of scientists leaving the US may not be very large, but when it's the top young talent it's a problem. You won't see that problem in ten years, but in twenty it will have a big effect on the scientific leadership of the US. People forget, we're just 4% of the world's population. Our overwhelming technological leadership is dependent upon keeping the best of our talent here, and attracting the best of talent from overseas.
Just check grants.gov (Score:2)
You will be amazed at just how many projects - many of which dubious at best - are funded.
I completely agree that we need to retain at least some of these individuals, even if just to keep them occupied and unavailable to our rivals and adversaries.
But from a purely pragmatic perspective - we really do fund a lot of useless work, and current spending is unsustainable.
Everything old is new again (Score:2)
in the 1930 the germans drove the scientists out
Maga/DJT is doing it here now
Make it stop!! (Score:2)
So much winning! D=
Re: (Score:2)
and thus spoketh the profit(sp?)
"We're gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning and you'll say please please it's too much winning we can't take it anymore"
Re: Make it stop!! (Score:3)
You can bet Donald Trump is winning right now. American citizens have done their job so why would they matter?