America is on the precipice of an academic brain drain

Hindustan Times

22-05-2025

Matthias Doepke was impressed when he moved to America as a graduate student in the 1990s. Academic pay was better than in his native Germany and university departments were slick and organised. But what he appreciated most was the attitude. 'You come to the US and you have this feeling that you are totally welcome and you're totally part of the local community,' he says. In 2012 he became a professor of economics at Northwestern University in Illinois, and in 2014 became a naturalised citizen.
But in April Dr Doepke resigned from Northwestern; he is now a professor at the London School of Economics. He is clear about why he and his family left: the election of Donald Trump as president. 'Once the election happened,' he says, 'it was clear we weren't going to stay.' Mr Trump's government is taking a chainsaw to American science, pulling grants, revoking researcher visas, and planning enormous cuts to the country's biggest funders of research (see chart 1). Academics talk of a 'war on science'. Few have followed Dr Doepke's example and moved overseas just yet. But plenty of data suggest they soon might. An exodus from the world's scientific superpower beckons.
Springer Nature publishes Nature, the world's most prestigious scientific journal. It also runs a much-used jobs board for academics. In the first three months of the year applications by researchers based in America for jobs in other countries were up by 32% compared with the same period in 2024. In March Nature itself conducted a poll of more than 1,200 researchers at American institutions, of whom 75% said they were thinking of leaving (though disgruntled academics were probably more likely to respond to the poll than satisfied ones). And just as American researchers eye the exit, foreigners are becoming more reluctant to move in. Springer Nature's data suggests applications by non-American candidates for American research jobs have fallen by around 25% compared with the same period last year.
Attitudes are souring at the bottom of the academic totem pole as well. Searches for American PhDs on FindAPhD, a website that does exactly what its name suggests, were down by 40% year on year in April. Interest from students in Europe has fallen by half. Data from another website, Studyportals, show less interest in domestic PhDs among Americans, and a rise in interest in international studentships compared with 2024 (see chart 2).
Greener pastures
Why is America losing its allure? The most straightforward reason is money, or the looming lack of it. Mr Trump's administration has cancelled thousands of research grants since January, when he took office. Grant Watch, a website, calculates that at least $2.5bn-worth have been rescinded so far, leaving researchers without salaries and unable to pay expenses. Much more could be coming. The White House's budget for 2026 aims to slash science spending. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world's biggest funder of biomedical research, faces a nearly 40% cut. The National Science Foundation (NSF), another big federal funder, may lose 52%.
Such cuts must be approved by Congress. But if the budget is enacted, The Economist calculates that more than 80,000 researchers could lose their jobs. American funding for academic science would fall significantly behind that of either China or the European Union, after adjusting for costs.
Funding is not the only issue. Many scientists, especially those who are citizens of other countries, are beginning to feel intimidated. In the first four months of 2025 at least 1,800 international students or recent grads had their visas revoked without explanation, only to have them restored again in April. Senior scientists report difficulty obtaining visas for incoming researchers, and have advised junior colleagues from overseas not to travel home, lest they be detained on their return.
Others allege that the government is meddling with their research. Kevin Hall, a researcher at the NIH, quit in April after two such incidents. First, he says the NIH asked him to edit a section of a paper that mentioned 'health equity'. ('Equity' is an unpopular word among Mr Trump's supporters.) Later Dr Hall published a study showing that ultra-processed foods did not activate the same addiction pathways in the brain as drugs do—contradicting the views of administration officials. Dr Hall alleges the NIH edited his responses to a journalist, without his approval, to downplay his findings. (The NIH told The Economist that it does not respond to false allegations by former employees.)
Some other countries spy in all this an opportunity to beef up their own scientific capabilities. Several Canadian universities, including the Toronto's University Health Network and Laval University in Quebec, have announced funding worth tens of millions of dollars explicitly aimed at diverting researchers from America. On May 5th Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, gave a speech in Paris urging scientists to 'choose Europe', highlighting a wodge of new money and the bloc's social safety-net. The University of Helsinki has been targeting Americans with adverts on social media, promising them 'freedom to think'.
China is likely to be another beneficiary. According to the South China Morning Post, the country is redoubling its efforts to lure Chinese-born scientists from America by offering big salaries. Between 2019 and 2022 the share of non-native artificial-intelligence (AI) researchers who left America for China after their PhD doubled, from 4% to 8%. Springer Nature's data suggest that in the first quarter of this year applications for jobs in China from scientists based in America were up by 20% compared with the same period last year.
That matters, for much of America's scientific pre-eminence has been built by researchers who were not born there. Since 1901, researchers based in America have won 55% of academic Nobel prizes, and more than a third of these scientists were foreign-born. Immigrant inventors produce an outsize share of patents, too. The Paulson Institute, a think-tank, reckons that in 2022 almost two-thirds of top-tier AI researchers working in America hailed from overseas. Losing even some of those would be a blow to American innovation.
Other countries might gain, but the disruption would harm science as a whole. At around $40bn, Mr Trump's planned funding cuts are too big for other countries to make up by themselves. (The extra funding promised by Mrs von der Leyen, for instance, is worth only €500m, or $566m, over three years.) Many researchers will probably leave science altogether. Everyone would lose—even if America lost most.
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