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America has stood as a world superpower for the past century or so, and much of that power has been derived from the country’s scientific and technological prowess. From medicine to aerospace, some of the greatest thinkers in modern history have called the United States their home and pushed boundaries while residing within its borders.
That tradition is under threat in ways it has never been before as Donald Trump’s administration engages in the mass firing of scientists in the federal government, cuts funding to scientific research, and generally pushes an agenda that opposes scientific inquiry.
The Trump administration has thrown out hundreds of National Institutes of Health (NIH) research projects, fired thousands of the agency’s scientists, and looks intent on further dismantling the agency. Research funding for universities is also being stripped. So is climate science. Science is under attack in the United States basically everywhere you look.
Trump’s attacks on science are making American scientists anxious, and many are considering leaving the country indefinitely. Nearly 2,000 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine signed a letter in March warning of the administration’s threat to science. A poll from the international science journal Nature in late March found that 75 percent of American scientists are considering leaving the United States. European countries are planning on increasing their science funding, and countries like France, Belgium, and the Netherlands have launched programs to lure American scientists.
Jan Danckaert, rector of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium, says his university has launched its own program to attract American scientists.
“Our university is establishing a dedicated contact point for researchers who want to continue their work in Brussels,” Danckaert tells Rolling Stone. “U.S. universities and their scholars are victims of political and ideological interference by the Trump administration. They are seeing millions of dollars in research funding being abruptly cut for ideological reasons.”
In France, Aix-Marseille University has received nearly 300 applications from Americans for its “Safe Place for Science” program. Europe saw many scientists flee for the U.S. during World War II, and it now appears that experts are starting to flow in the opposite direction.
“I never thought I would live in a country where I would see scientists basically seeking asylum,” says Jennifer Jones, director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists. “Some are seeking asylum because their work is no longer valued or funded. Some just don’t see the future of their career here.”
Jones says she’s heard from scientists who are “actively looking for positions overseas,” and that these scientists are often at the beginning or end of their career. Those who are just starting out can easily relocate, and some who are at the tail end of their career might want to finish it off somewhere else. Many scientists are also from outside of the U.S. and are considering returning home.
“If we lose elements of both generations, that’s so hard. You’re losing the most senior, deep level of expertise,” Jones says. “They’re also the ones who mentor and train the next generation. When you lose early career folks, you lose capacity that could take years or decades to regain.”
Adam Siepel, a computational biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, says he’s been seriously considering moving to Europe or Canada. He says the atmosphere in America is “very spooky” right now and “almost reminiscent of Nazi Germany or the Cultural Revolution in China.” He says a lot of scientists are worried about the future.
“You start to wonder if it’s going to be possible to do science in this country, and if there is a major flow of scientists to other countries, where should we go?” Siepel says. “I’m not ready to leave the United States yet, but I think we’re all keeping our eyes open and looking for our options if things do turn out really badly.”
Dr. Stephen Jones, a biochemist who now works at Vilnius University in Lithuania, started considering leaving the U.S. during the 2020 presidential election while he was finishing his postdoc at the University of Texas. He and his wife weren’t sure how the election was going to turn out, but there was a lot of anti-science sentiment during the Covid-19 pandemic and Europe looked appealing. Even though Trump didn’t win that election, they decided to leave.
“You know what I don’t have to experience right now? I haven’t had to kick any students or any researchers off my team. My funding is more secure than ever,” Jones says. “I have a friend who had to start a GoFundMe to keep her laboratory going [in America]. I’m not thinking about those things.”
Jones says he’s advised other scientists on how to exit the U.S. for Europe. He says he was not having those meetings “before January of this year.” He also just welcomed an American researcher to his team who recently completed his PhD. Some European scientists who were considering moving to the U.S. for work have told him they’re no longer considering that option.
“It’s going to become, and it’s already becoming, a brain drain,” Jones says. “It’s the kind of thing you don’t see immediately. This takes time to manifest itself — sometimes because it has to get bad enough for people to decide to finally go somewhere else.”
America’s brain drain hasn’t just affected scientists. Jason Stanley, a former Yale philosophy professor, expert on authoritarianism and author of How Fascism Works, decided to take a job at the University of Toronto earlier this year. He said he feared the U.S. was at risk of becoming a “fascist dictatorship” under Trump. (Surely there’s no reason to worry about a fascism expert deciding to pack his bags and flee the country.)
The Trump administration claims to want to reduce government spending, but if that’s part of its rationalization for gutting the sciences, then it’s not behaving logically. Investing in basic science often generates more money than it costs.
“Every dollar spent on NIH research results in about $2.50 worth of economic growth,” Siepel says. “I think around 90 percent of FDA-approved new drugs started out with NIH support.”
All of the scientists aren’t going to leave at once, and so far it’s only a trickle exiting the U.S., but it’s clear that the future of science is in question in America. If things continue on the path they’re on, more and more scientists will decide to work elsewhere. This will make the U.S. less competitive and deprive it of important innovations.
“It’s a lot easier to break things than to build them. Unfortunately, we’re in the breaking phase right now,” Dr. Jones says. “The building materials are being used elsewhere in the world now.”
