Meet the researchers leaving the US because of Trump’s funding cuts and politicization of science

Countries including Canada, France, Belgium and Finland are actively recruiting scientists from U.S. institutions, a development researchers describe as disturbing for a nation that leads the world in Nobel prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry. Since the Trump administration began overhauling federal grant processes and attempting greater political influence over research funding, foreign universities have launched programs offering more stable funding and academic freedom.

While no comprehensive national data exists, scientists and professional groups say the exodus is clear and unprecedented. Tobin Smith, senior vice president of the Association of American Universities, said nearly any university vice president for research can cite one or two top faculty members they have lost. More than half of American states have lost scientists to international recruitment programs, according to an April report from the Business for Federal Research Funding Coalition.

Early-career biomedical scientists were about 20 percentage points less likely to say they would stay in the U.S. compared to six months earlier, and physics Ph.D. graduates in 2025 left the country at the highest rate in 30 years, according to the American Institute of Physics. White House spokesperson Liz Huston said the administration is "ending waste" and remains "committed to keeping America the world leader in scientific innovation, and that means funding real science."

Halley Froehlich, whose family has been in America since the 1700s, moved to Finland with her husband and daughter after delayed federal grants and concerns about the future. She continues her research on how fish, shellfish and seaweed respond to climate change at the University of Helsinki. Christine Stawitz left the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the University of Birmingham in England after being asked to remove references to climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion from websites.

Stawitz said NOAA no longer aligned with her values and that the upheaval in U.S. science is a common topic at international conferences. "People talk about the U.S. at conferences in the U.K. now like, I don't know what's going on there. It's not good," she said. "It used to be the shining city on the hill where we all want to go. That reputational loss, I think, is hard to quantify, but also really damaging."

Sources: Las Vegas Review-Journal