Once a paradise for scientists, America faces a brain drain

Sharp cuts to science and research institutes in the United States have prompted many in the research community to consider leaving the country, enticed by newly-launched programmes in Europe and China to lure away disenchanted talent.

This is a sharp reversal from decades of complaints that American institutions, long a magnet for the best and brightest around the world, were the cause of an unwelcome brain drain. Now, statistics point to a brain drain in reverse.

According to a poll by the world’s most widely cited scientific journal, the British-based Nature, three quarters of 1,200 American scientists who responded to the magazine’s poll are considering leaving the United States. The reason: mass firings and disruptions since Donald Trump began his second presidential term in January.

A decision to leave a hostile environment may well be made easier by a drastic, unprecedented move, announced on May 22, to bar Harvard, arguably the world’s most prestigious university, from enrolling international students. That followed protracted legal wrangling over how much influence the federal administration can have over the conduct of private universities.

Disenchanted American researchers are being courted by a European Community plan to “make Europe a magnet for researchers” through an investment of 500 million Euros ($566 million) to help members of the U.S. science community settle into new jobs.

At the same time, China is making a determined effort to recruit recently laid-off scientists to a large-scale research operation based in the south-eastern city of Shenzhen. Beginning in March, advertisements in major international publications, on Craigslist and Linked-in offered “comprehensive end-to-end support to realise your technological ambitions in Shenzhen.”

The ads described Shenzhen as “a metropolis for the future” where “boundless opportunities” await in artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and cutting-edge innovations. Shenzhen partners with leading universities and research universities, the ads promised.

Both the European and Chinese initiatives came after a wave of layoffs across federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Research projects at top universities, including Harvard, have been paused or halted.

The cuts were imposed by DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, which is led by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and close associate of Trump. His election campaign benefitted from Musk contributions totaling $288 million.

The wave of DOGE-dictated cuts and layoffs so alarmed the American scientific community that 47 scientific societies, associations, and organisations representing close to 100,000 scientists in a variety of fields urged Congress to protect federal scientists. The appeal came in a letter from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The European Union and China are not the only outlets for Americans who give up on pursuing their careers in the U.S. in the present climate of hostility to scientific research institutions.

In Germany, the Max Planck Institutes, home of top research facilities in biomedicine, astrophysics and environmental science, has been dubbed “a new talent pool” for disenchanted Americans by its president, Patrick Cramer.

When the EU’s top executive, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the European incentive programme in March, she did not mention Trump of DOGE but left no doubt about her thoughts of what is happening in the United States. “Unfortunately, we see that the role of science in today’s world is questioned,” she said.

“The investment in fundamental, free, and open research is questioned. What a gigantic miscalculation.”

It is not known how many Americans will take up offers from outside the country. Life-changing plans take time and those who leave tend to keep it quiet for fear of being branded unpatriotic. So far, there is no sign of a massive outflow.

But one basis for speculation mentioned by the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel is the fact that close to ten percent of Highly Cited Researchers based in the U.S. have at least one bachelor, master’s degree or PhD from Europe and therefore are familiar with the region.

Given generous relocation incentives, winning them back should be relatively easy to turn Europe into “a magnet for researchers” over the next two years, the aim von der Leyen proclaimed.

A look at history highlights how significant a reverse brain drain would be in the world of science.

One indicator of the gigantic role the United States has played for more than a century is the number of Nobel prizes awarded since two French citizens- Henry Dunant and Frederic Passy- shared the first in 1901.

Since then, the United States grew into a research and science superpower, a powerful magnet for the best and brightest in the world. By last year, the toll of Nobel prizes won by Americans stood at 423 – 100 in physics, 86 in chemistry, 109 in physiology/medicine and 69 in economics.

The harvest of prizes was more than twice that of Britain, the runner-up, with 143. Germany gained 115 and France 76.

A significant share of American Nobel laureates – some estimates put it at 30 percent - have been immigrants, including last year’s physiology/medicine winner, Katalin Kariko. She was born in Hungary and came to the United States for post-doctoral studies at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Not to forget: The Manhattan Project which developed the atomic bomb relied heavily on immigrant scientists who fled from persecution in Europe to the then American magnet for science.