Some scientists in the United States have said Nature that they plan to leave the country following a generalized disruption to the research provided by the American president’s administration Donald Trump. Researchers say they are looking for opportunities in Europe, Australia and Asia.
Since Trump took office in January, his administration Cut thousands of jobs to key public health and science agencies, frozen biomedical Research financingcutting money to cover research costs on research and Grants finished who do not line up with the Administration priorities. The effects of these changes have been felt by researchers in the United States and abroad.
“I was really, really passionate about my work, but the situation in the United States is so stressful,” said a postdoctoral researcher who studies cancer and genomics in a prestigious American institution and who asked for anonymity because she did not have the permission to speak to the media. The researcher is from South Asia, but has spent the last four years in the United States and is now talking to Europe’s colleagues about opportunities. As a person who is not an American citizen, she is concerned about media reports describing the Trump administration’s plans to introduce travel prohibitions affecting specific countries.
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Madhukar Pai, a researcher in tuberculosis at McGill University in Montreal, in Canada, says that American colleagues were in contact in search of work or to want to speak. “Distress is very palpable and sad to see,” he says.
Ready to leave
An eminent researcher of infectious differences, which is a double national of the United States and a Member State of the European Union, intends to return to Europe in the coming months. It is the first time in decade and a half since he has moved to the United States that he is seriously considering job offers from colleagues from the Atlantic. “There is the case where to stay and fight”, but “I have to consider what is the best decision for me, my family, my laboratory, my research and my mental health”, explains the researcher, who wants to remain anonymous because his plans are not finalized and to protect his team.
He says that his reasons for leaving include the anti-science rhetoric of the Trump administration and the leadership changes in the Trump administration in the main government agencies. He is also concerned about the future of funding in his field of infectious diseases and virology.
Leaving the United States will require compromises, he said. Wages in Europe are generally lower than those of researchers with their experience in the United States, and the research environment in Europe can be less interdisciplinary, he said. The financing of science across Europe also remains stagnant. But having the possibility of leaving for the place in an “extremely privileged position”, he adds.