Researchers flee the American dream

Drastic cuts into agencies and migratory restrictions turn the US into hostile territory to scientists, who now migrate towards Europe and Canada

Every empire, real or imaginary, builds monuments to progress. The Nazi regime was developing a colossal scientific center as part of Hitler’s Great Germanic project to Berlin, but the war intervened. The center was buried by rubble under an artificial hill, where the victorious allies eventually built a listening post.

In 2010, the Skolkovo Foundation built a gleaming technology center in the West Zone of Moscow, such as Kremlin’s response to Silicon Valley. Much of it is now empty, with the war in Ukraine and economic sanctions frustrating this dream.

Political power has been designed through science since ancient times. But when the freedom of work of the academics is threatened, they move away – as happened under the Nazi regime, during the Soviet period and, in recent years, with the consolidation of President Vladimir Putin’s domain over the Russian Federation.

Throughout the twentieth and early twenty -twentieth centuries, most of these academics fled to the US – a country that encouraged research without fear or favoritism. Despite their other deficiencies, people from all over the world have closed there in search of opportunities at unrivaled universities. But now, thanks to President Donald Trump and his quick attack on the country’s higher education institutions, a reverse brain escape began.

And much of this is going to the continent that it apparently abhors: Europe.

These academics are not just coming out of their own choice. As financing is summarily cut, academics and local researchers are seeing themselves without jobs, and whole departments are closing. Meanwhile, foreign academics, many of whom have made their home from the US, are being expelled or prevented from often for spurious reasons, or for fear that it happens to them.

Margaret McFall-Gris, Biochemistry of the California Institute of Technology, described the situation as “shadowy and increasingly dark.” Highlighting one of the many cases, she talked about “an amazing American student in every way, but universities are closing her programs this year or drastically reducing the number of vacancies, so she has nowhere to go. I sent her resume to colleagues in Europe, and she will go to Max-Planck, Germany, to do her graduate school,” she said.

And this is not an isolated incident. Of the 690 postgraduate researchers who responded to a survey in the Nature publication, 548 said they were considering leaving the US. One even answered, “This is my home, I really love my country, but many of my mentors have told me to get out right now.”

In addition, as McFall-Gristed, there are numerous stories of international students afraid to leave the US: “I have postgraduate and postdoctoral students who are Slovenians, Belgians, Portuguese, French, Austrian, Mexicans, Chinese and Irish.” Several of them, she said, wanted to take a vacation to see their families, “but they told them they couldn’t return to the US if they left.”

So far, there have been layoffs in institutions such as National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NCF), the US Geological Service (USGs) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The National Health Institutes (NIH) – the world’s largest funder of biomedical research – were forced to dismiss 1,200 employees and suspend scholarship reviews, essentially interrupting laboratories financing. And with the cuts approaching, some federal agencies were required to remove terms considered unacceptably “conscious” such as diversity, gender and climate science from their websites.

But for Europeans and Canadians, still recovering from the open contempt that the Trump government demonstrates, revenge is a cold plate.

Thirteen EU member countries, including France and Germany, have already written to the commissioner for startups, research and innovation, Ekaterina Zakharieva, asking for more financing and infrastructure to attract migrant scientists. And French Minister of Higher Education and Research, Philippe Baptiste, asked for a “quick and robust response” to the “collective madness” of these decisions.

Several universities across Europe started a recruitment campaign, finding new sources of financing to attract specific individuals. The University of Aix-Marseille in France has reserved € 15 million for 15 vacancies of three years as part of its new Safe Place For Science program, and the university claims to be receiving a dozen applications per day from “scientific asylum applicants”.

Vrije University Brussel has announced 12 vacancies for international researchers, “with a specific focus on American academics.” The Pasteur Institute in Paris noted that it was working to recruit experts in areas such as infectious diseases and disease origins. And the Vice Rector of the University of Cambridge said they are “certainly organizing” for possible US hiring.

Similarly, Patrick Cramer, president of the Max-Planck Institute in Berlin, described the US as “a new group of talents.” He said he already had several names on his list that “made his eyes” shine ” – especially those involved in artificial intelligence.

But safe refuges are not limited to Europe: Australia, for example, is looking for quick visas for the best and brightest. And the most attractive destination will probably be Canada, given its proximity to the US in terms of distance and culture.

During Trump’s first term, there was a lot about Americans’ escape to the north, but the numbers remained small. This time, however, the exit will probably be significant, including not only formal academics, but also journalists, activists and anyone who feels threatened or unable to act freely.

One of the first to announce his change was Timothy Snyder, one of the best known authoritarianism experts who left Yale to join the University of Toronto. Snyder described Canada as “North America’s Ukraine” with Trump America hanging over the border.

But while academics do not bother with the welcome given to newcomers, some express concern about the money that will be diverted from existing budgets. Universities in Canada and many European countries have made financial cuts for several years. And some may resent the prominent status given to the new foreign generation – as happened in the US in the 1930s and after World War II.

However, it is important to remember that by fleeing to America, these academics greatly improved the quality of work in their institutions, as well as the status of the newly adduced country.

This legacy is now going downhill, thanks to a white house that seems determined to destroy not only economic and political paradigms, but also a higher education system that actually made the United States big – though apparently not for long.

By John Kampfner, a British author, broadcaster and commentator. His most recent book, “In Search of Berlin,” was published by Atlantic. He is a regular columnist of the policy.