In March 2025, Aix-Marseille University in Marseille, France, launched a program, Safe Space for Science, that offers three-year positions to scientists from the United States ‘‘wishing to pursue their research in complete freedom” [
1]. The 15-million-euro pro- gram received nearly 300 applications within about a month [
2,
3]. In May 2025, the European Union (EU) announced a 567 million USD science funding boost to help draw US researchers [
4]. Japan has revved up its efforts to lure US scientists, as have institutions in several other countries, including Australia and Canada [
5-
7].
Countries have long competed for scientific talent, but many of them are now making a concerted effort to recruit researchers who may want to leave the United States because of the Trump administration’s policy changes [
8]. In just a few months, experts say, these changes have undermined many of the advantages that have long made the United States a magnet for scientific talent (
Fig. 1). The new administration’s actions in 2025 so far include canceling thousands of research grants, making it harder for interna- tional students to obtain visas to study in the country, detaining for- eign-born scientists as they attempted to return from international trips, and threatening to shut off federal funding for top universities such as Harvard University, Columbia University, and the University of California, Los Angeles [
9-
12]. Moreover, the administration’s ini- tially proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year would slash outlays for three major science-funding agencies—the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration—by 37% to more than 50% [
13]. These actions are unprecedented, said Cole Donovan, associate director for science and technology ecosystem develop- ment at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC, USA. ‘‘Have we seen something like this specifically in US history? The answer is no.”
The effects on US science will be devastating, many researchers say. ‘‘This is a shocking period. I honestly do not know whether our scientific enterprise will survive,” said Michael Lubell, professor of physics at City University of New York in New York City, NY, USA. Some scientists have already left the United States, including the first eight hires for the Safe Space for Science program, who arrived in France in June 2025 [
3,
14]. And many experts fear an exodus [
15]. ‘‘There could be a substantial loss” of scientific talent, said Donovan. The administration’s policies could be particularly dam- aging because the US science enterprise relies on researchers from other countries, added Caroline Wagner, professor of public affairs at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH, USA. ‘‘The danger is that people from other countries who are super-smart will not be attracted to the United States.”
The United States started to become a prime destination for sci- entific emigres in the 1930s, offering refuge from fascism for researchers such as Albert Einstein [
16]. Since World War II, the United States has been able to attract many of the world’s top researchers with benefits such as world-class facilities, academic freedom, high salaries, and most important, generous research funding [
8,
17]. Like top athletes, scientists ‘‘tend to be free agents,” said Wagner. ‘‘They usually go to the highest bidder with the best assembly of talent” for them to work with.
Researchers and students from abroad now account for a large share of the US scientific talent pool [
17]. Foreign students, most of whom hail from China or India, earned more than one-third of US doctors of philosophy (PhDs) in science or engineering in 2023, for instance [
17]. And of the 112 US-based researchers who won Nobel prizes in science between 2000 and 2023, 40% were born outside the country [
18].
But the biggest factor, Donovan said, was that scientific com-petitors of the United States stepped up their efforts to retain their own talent and entice researchers from other countries. China has been particularly successful for several reasons [
21,
22]. According to a 2024 year-end report from the United Nations World Intellec- tual Property Organization [
23], China’s R&D investment has increased 18-fold since 2000, moving from 4% of total global R&D in 2000 to 26% in 2023. China’s 2023 R&D spending of 723 billion USD put it just behind the United States, which invested 784 billion USD; the entire EU was a distant third on the list at 410 billion USD [
23]. Along with plentiful research funding, other benefits China offers include higher salaries for talent program participants, financing for graduate students, housing subsidies, and medical insurance [
21,
22]. The central government runs some talent recruitment plans, but so do individual universities, provinces, counties, and cities that are competing to recruit scientists [
21]. Such programs are one reason that between 2010 and 2021, more than 12 000 researchers of Chinese descent who had been working in the United States returned home [
22].
‘‘The decline in attractiveness of the United States started before this administration,” said Donovan. ‘‘What we will likely see is that this administration has hit the accelerator.” Science jobs have already disappeared. In 2025, the US government laid off thousands of scientific workers and eliminated large numbers of programs, which led to follow-on job losses at institutions that depended on that funding [
9,
24]. One tracking site created by researchers at several US universities estimates that cuts to the NIH, which is the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, had cost 48 000 jobs by mid-September of 2025 [
25]. Researchers predict further job losses as the effects of the current cuts ripple through the scientific economy and if the administration is suc- cessful in carrying out its plans to chop the budgets of funding agencies such as NSF and NIH [
9]. Other potential sources of fund- ing, such as philanthropies and universities, do not have the resources to compensate for those reductions, said Lubell.
Some high-profile researchers have already moved out of the United States, and others will probably join them [
21]. But the Trump administration’s actions will likely have the largest effect by discouraging young people from pursuing careers in science, said Jason Owen-Smith, executive director of the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, USA. What the administration is doing ‘‘creates a massive amount of uncertainty in a process that is already long and challenging,” he said. ‘‘That makes it harder for people to decide it is worth the time.” Lubell agrees. He now counsels young researchers to leave the country to pursue their scientific ambi- tions. Many of them may be thinking of doing just that. In an April 2025 poll by the journal
Nature, 79% of the postdoctoral research- ers and 75% of the PhD students who responded said they might depart the United States [
26].
Since Trump took office for the second time in January 2025, many governments, institutes, organizations, and universities have launched new programs—or beefed-up existing ones—in hopes of drawing US scientific emigres. The European Research Council, one of Europe’s top science funders, has doubled the amount of start-up money that foreign researchers can obtain to launch new laboratories, making its grants comparable to US grants [
7]. The Australian Academy of Science has launched a Global Talent Attraction Program to lure researchers down under [
6]. Spain’s Agencia Estatal de Investigación initiative to attract international scientists is boosting its awards to US scientists by 226 000 USD [
7]. The University Health Network of Toronto, ON, Canada, has raised a total of 11 million USD to recruit 50 early career health researchers and is targeting US scientists [
27]. China has not initi- ated a national recruiting program, but US researchers report receiving offers from the country [
28,
29]. Lubell is one of them. But he turned down the opportunity to move to China to help start a new institute. ‘‘I am 82 years old,” he said.
Researchers may find other reasons not to leave the United States. Scientific salaries are still often substantially lower in other countries [
8]. And many of the potential destinations face their own financial constraints. Several of the countries now trying to attract US researchers, including France, have recently sliced their science budgets [
30].
How many scientists the United States will lose—or fail to recruit—remains to be seen. But the Trump administration’s poli- cies will change who works in US science, said Owen-Smith. ‘‘I do not know if ‘brain drain’ is the right terminology, but there will be very significant consequences for the character, productivity, and inventiveness of the US scientific workforce.”
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