Search cuts in the United States have forced many scientists to rethink their careers.Credit: Shelby Tauber / Bloomberg via Getty
The massive changes in American research caused by the new administration of President Donald Trump means that many scientists in the country rethink their lives and their career. More than 1,200 scientists who responded to a Nature The survey – three -quarters of the total respondents – plan to leave the United States following the disturbances caused by Trump. Europe and Canada were among the best relocation choices.
Source: Nature survey
The trend was particularly pronounced in researchers at the start of their career. Of the 690 third cycle researchers who responded, 548 planned to leave; 255 out of 340 doctoral students said the same thing.
Trump administration has reduced research funding and interrupted large -scale scientists funded by the federal government, as part of a government reduction initiative on the level of the government led by billionaire Elon Musk. Tens of thousands of federal employees, including many scientists, have been dismissed and rehired following a court order, with more threats to come. The repression and the battles of immigration on academic freedom have left Researchers in shock Like uncertainty and disturbances permeate all aspects of the American research company.
Decision to leave
Nature Asked the readers if these changes made them consider leaving the United States. The answers were asked earlier this month on the newspaper websiteon social networks and in Nature Briefing Newsletter e-mail. About 1,650 people completed the survey.
Many respondents were trying to move to countries where they already had collaborators, friends, family or familiarity with the language. “Everywhere supporting science,” wrote a respondent. Some who had moved to the United States for work planned to return to their country of origin.
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But many more scientists had not planned to move, until Trump begins to avoid funding and dismiss researchers. “It’s my house – I really like my country,” said a student graduated from an American university who works in plant genomics and agriculture. “But many of my mentors have told me to go out right now.”
This student has lost his support for research and his allowance when the Trump administration closed the funding of the American agency for international development. Her advisor has found emergency funds to support her in the short term, but she rushes to apply for teaching assistant positions – now extremely competitive – to transport her to the rest of her program.
She was already planning to make a postdoctoral scholarship abroad because of her interest in international agriculture. Losing its funding and looking at some of his colleagues is licensed has strengthened this in an action plan. “Seeing all the work stopped is heartbreaking,” she says. “I looked very diligently for opportunities in Europe, Australia and Mexico.”
The student hopes to return to the United States in the future if the upheaval of the research landscape sets up. But for the moment, the Trump administration “said very clearly” that its field of interest, global food systems, “will not be a priority or an orientation,” she said. “If I want to work in this space, I will have to find elsewhere who prioritizes this.” Private funding from the United States, as well as by philanthropy, is an option, but it plans to compete with an overabundance of projects funded by the federal government.
Opportunities abroad
Another respondent says that disturbances were “particularly horrible” for scientists at the start of their career like him. “The PIs (main investigators) to which I said to myself to be able to resist this storm,” he said. “As a meeting at the start of a career, we do not have this luxury – it’s an essential moment in our career, and he was thrown into a turmoil in a few weeks.”