Researchers in the United States are looking for career opportunities abroad while President Donald Trump’s administration reduces scientific funding and labor figures, finds an analysis of NatureWork work data.
Data from Nature Careers Global Science Jobs Platform Show that American scientists have submitted 32% more requests for jobs abroad between January and March 2025 as during the same period in 2024. At the same time, the number of American users who traversing jobs abroad increased by 35%.
In March alone, while the administration intensified its reductions in science, views increased by 68% compared to the same month of last year.
More than 200 federal research subsidies related to HIV and AIDS have been suddenly terminated last month. Cups to the subsidies of the United States National Institutes of Health for Cavid-19 have been revealedAnd the government began a Reduction of US 400 million dollars of research subsidies at Columbia University In New York, due to the demonstrations of the campus supporting the Palestinians in the conflict with Israel.
“Seeing this great drop in opinions and applications in the United States – and the similar increase in those who seek to leave – is unprecedented,” explains James Richards, who heads the world team of Springer Nature talent solutions, which includes the Multidisciplinary Science Job Board nature. While this article was put in press, the board of directors welcomed 983 live vacant stations.
The team shared the data with Nature Journalists provided that his analysis was limited to changes as a percentage rather than raw numbers, on the grounds that information is considered to be a commercial privilege. NatureJournalists are editorially independent of Springer Nature, its publisher.
The publication of data on careers of a carefulboard nature follows a distinct survey of researchers by NatureThe press team, which found that 75% of researchers from the United States who responded were eager to leave.
US President Donald Trump has balancing research institutions during his mandate.Credit: Ben Curtis / AP / Alamy
The applications of American scientists looking for career possibilities in neighboring Canada increased by 41% between January and March 2025, compared to the same period in 2024. On the other hand, the applications of Canadian researchers for jobs in the United States fell by 13%.
The chemical engineer Valerie Niemann is one of the many who are watching beyond the United States to develop his career. This month, she moved from Stanford University in California to occupy a postdoctoral post at the University of Bern.
In the United States, she said, “People have not known for how long their post-doctorait. We cannot ask for scholarships because we do not know how long they will exist. ”
In an article of March 25 on the social media platform X, Xiao Wu, biostatistian of Columbia University, deplored: “My very first NIH grant was abruptly canceled only three months after receiving funding.” His work focuses on the use of data based on evidence to alleviate climate change damage to health.
Wu is not currently looking for work elsewhere, but fears that he ultimately has no choice. “Without these subsidies, my career stability and my professional future are directly compromised,” he says. “Consequently, this situation is not simply a” search for other opportunities “, but rather that where we are effectively forced to leave American university establishments.” (See “American interest in international jobs”.)
Bring me your huddles
Some European institutions rush to attract what could be an exodus of scientific talents from the United States.
In early March, for example, Aix-Marseille University in France launched the Safe Place for Science Initiative. He allocated 15 million euros (around $ 17 million US dollars) from the university’s budget to sponsor 15 researchers working on climate, health, the environment and the social sciences.
Aix-Marseille spokesperson Clara BUFI said that the University has closed the application window after receiving overwhelming importance from 298 requests and nearly 400 information requests, but adds that it could reopen it after the processing of current applications. The program is intended for American researchers who have been dismissed, censored or prevented from working according to the actions of the Trump administration. Seventy percent of candidates are researchers from the United States and are specialists in their fields, she says, and 20 people will now be selected this year.
“What is happening is terrible for American research,” explains the president of Aix-Marseille, Éric Berton, adding: “We estimated that he was our duty to do what we could to show scientists that there was a little light in the south of France where they could do their research, be much freer and where they were doomed.”
Berton’s message seems to be convincing. The United States requests to fill European vacancies on the nature of Careers Jobs Board increased by 32% in March compared to the same month a year earlier, and the views increased by 41%.
At the same time, applications to the American institutions of researchers in Europe fell by 41%.
The Max Planck Institutes in Germany responded to the requests of some of their researchers who are from the United States but who wish to stay in Germany longer than they had planned.
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Christina Beck, spokesperson for the institutes, says that more applications also arrive from Asian countries, attributing the rise to “scientists perhaps redirect and prefer Europe in the United States”. She adds: “We closely follow the situation in the United States and we are very concerned about encroachments on academic freedom and institutional autonomy there.”
On April 7, Patrick Cramer, president of the Max Planck Society in Munich, Germany, announced the training of the Max Planck Transatlantic Program. The initiative defines plans to create collaborative research centers with institutions based in the United States, as well as new postdoctoral training positions and additional places for junior investigators in the 84 institutes of the company. He will also offer director positions to certain “exceptional investigators” who are no longer able to work in the United States.
The entire international job market has seen a peak of activity (see “Opportunities”). Opinions and candidates for non -American jobs published on the career website by nature by researchers outside the country were 13% higher in January to March 2025 than in the same period of last year.
But researchers who plan to flee in the United States in Europe should not expect an open position to await them.