From an article in The Atlantic titled "Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End: America’s run as the premiere techno-superpower may be over": ...On a recent visit to MIT... a scientist there, much celebrated in her field, told me that since Donald Trump’s second inauguration she has watched in horror as his administration has performed a controlled demolition on American science. Like many other researchers in the U.S., she’s not sure that she wants to stick around to dodge falling debris, and so she is starting to think about taking her lab abroad. (She declined to be named in this story so that she could speak openly about her potential plans.)
The very best scientists are like elite basketball players: They come to America from all over the world so that they can spend their prime years working alongside top talent. “It’s very hard to find a leading scientist who has not done at least some research in the U.S. as an undergraduate or graduate student or postdoc or faculty,” Michael Gordin, a historian of science and the dean of Princeton University’s undergraduate academics, told me. That may no longer be the case a generation from now.
Foreign researchers have recently been made to feel unwelcome in the U.S. They have been surveilled and harassed. The Trump administration has made it more difficult for research institutions to enroll them. Top universities have been placed under federal investigation. Their accreditation and tax-exempt status have been threatened. The Trump administration has proposed severe budget cuts at the agencies that fund American science—the NSF, the NIH, and NASA, among others—and laid off staffers in large numbers. Existing research grants have been canceled or suspended en masse. Committees of expert scientists that once advised the government have been disbanded. In May, the president ordered that all federally funded research meet higher standards for rigor and reproducibility—or else be subject to correction by political appointees.
Not since the Red Scare, when researchers at the University of California had to sign loyalty oaths, and those at the University of Washington and MIT were disciplined or fired for being suspected Communists, has American science been so beholden to political ideology. At least during the McCarthy era, scientists could console themselves that despite this interference, federal spending on science was surging. Today, it’s drying up.
Three-fourths of American scientists who responded to a recent poll by the journal Nature said they are considering leaving the country. They don’t lack for suitors. China is aggressively recruiting them, and the European Union has set aside a €500 million slush fund to do the same. National governments in Norway, Denmark, and France—nice places to live, all—have green-lighted spending sprees on disillusioned American scientists. The Max Planck Society, Germany’s elite research organization, recently launched a poaching campaign in the U.S., and last month, France’s Aix-Marseille University held a press conference announcing the arrival of eight American “science refugees.”
The MIT scientist who is thinking about leaving the U.S. told me that the Swiss scientific powerhouse ETH Zurich had already reached out about relocating her lab to its picturesque campus with a view of the Alps. A top Canadian university had also been in touch. These institutions are salivating over American talent, and so are others...
Full story at https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/07/science-empire-america-decline/683711/.
From the Chicago Tribune: Nearly four months have passed since the Donald Trump administration abruptly froze $790 million in federal funding at Northwestern University, and the school’s fragile research infrastructure has been pummeled by cuts. Portions of research and clinical trials have ground to a halt. Labs have been instructed to scrutinize every expense, from equipment to personnel. Some teams are even killing off lab mice because it’s cheaper than feeding them and cleaning cages. With university President Michael Schill set to appear again before a congressional committee..., rumors of a possible deal with the White House have gripped campus. But the situation on-the-ground remains dire, according to faculty and staff.
“Let’s say they unfreeze the funds. The damage is done,” said Guillermo Oliver, a professor in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension. “Let’s be clear, this is not going to be, ‘OK, back to business.’” Northwestern never received formal notification of the funding freeze in April, which came amid several federal probes into allegations of antisemitism. The Evanston-based university has been spending about $10 million a week to keep research afloat, faculty told the Tribune in June...
Full story at https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/04/northwestern-university-federal-funding-cuts/.
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