Drain the Brain Swamp

Apr 1, 4:12 PM EDTbyVictor Tangermann

The Majority of Scientists Are Now Considering Fleeing America

“Anywhere that supports science.”

/ Future Society/ Brain Drain/ Doge/ Donald Trump

Image by Getty / Futurism

As Donald Trump’s administration continues to gut scientific funding and diminish the role of research — all while installing crackpot anti-vaccine figureheads to lead entire federal agencies — scientists are starting to look for greener pastures.

According to a Nature poll of more than 1,200 scientists, a startling 75 percent said they’re now considering leaving the United States. Europe and Canada emerged as top choices for relocation.

And if that wasn’t enough sign of intellectual erosion, a whopping 79 percent of postgraduate researchers and 255 of 340 PhD students said they’d consider leaving.

“Anywhere that supports science,” one respondent wrote of where they’d go instead.

“This is my home — I really love my country,” another graduate student at a top US university wrote. “But a lot of my mentors have been telling me to get out, right now.”

It’s a sad reality for researchers, who are increasingly seeing no future with Trump at the helm. The poll highlights the threat of a massive brain drain as scientists are forced to pursue opportunities abroad instead.

Experts have warned that the country’s reputation as a world-leading place to conduct scientific research has taken a massive hit under the current Trump administration, which could also have disastrous long-term economic consequences in the years ahead.

While thousands of scientists have been rehired following mass firings at federal government agencies, concerns over future layoffs are still widespread. Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is still laying waste to one agency after the next. Earlier today, hundreds of federal health workers were told they’d be losing their jobs.

Massive cuts to grants and stipends, in particular, have US-based scientists reeling. Studies and clinical trials have ground to a halt. Countless projects are being canceled.

“Seeing all of the work stopped is heartbreaking,” the graduate student quoted above wrote. “I’ve been looking very diligently for opportunities in Europe, Australia, and Mexico.”

“If I want to work in that space, I’m going to have to find somewhere else that prioritizes that,” she said.

Meanwhile, institutions outside the US are counting their lucky stars and are expecting a massive influx of talent.

“From what I’m hearing from the places we’re talking to, and other people who are looking to take international jobs, a lot of universities in these countries are seeing this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” another researcher, who has been in touch with a Canadian university after his National Institutes of Health grant was terminated, told Nature.

“I think it has gone from ‘Can we recruit a few people?’ to ‘How many people can we actually take?’ — because the demand is there,” he added.

The hit to US universities could threaten the country’s competitiveness, especially when it comes to high-interest areas like AI.

“Universities are tremendously important engines of innovation,” New York University professor Sabrina Howell told the New York Times. “This is really killing the goose that lays the golden egg.”

In short, the Trump administration’s attack on science could be a devastating and potentially unprecedented self-own.

“We’ve had a pretty good run over the past 60 to 80 years,” Duke University economist Daniel Gross, who found in a working paper that Trump’s cuts could disproportionately affect institutions with the most successful research programs, told the NYT. “Sometimes you don’t realize the value of something until it’s gone.”

More on brain drain: NASA Disgusted by Elon Musk’s Disrespect

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