75% of US scientists consider leaving: poll

WASHINGTON, DC – Trump administration scientific research budget cuts appear to have prompted three-fourths of polled scientists to say they’re considering leaving the United States for Europe or Canada. The poll, published in the scientific journal Nature, revealed 75.3% of the responding scientists are considering leaving, while 24.7% are not.

One early-career researcher said they are facing research funding cuts at a critical stage in their careers and may not be able to weather the storm like more established scientists.

The sudden big cuts led by un-elected billionaire Elon Musk (pictured) seeks to shrink the federal government without systematically and carefully considering the impacts.

The poll was conducted prior to the early-April announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services that it was laying off 10,000 employees, including scientists from agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the National Cancer Institute, among others. The mass firing followed Trump administration cuts to research funded by the National Institutes of Health.

“We’re scared that these blanket mandates could erase decades of progress fighting cancer,” Anjee Davis, the CEO of Fight Colorectal Cancer, a patient advocacy group, told CBS News. “This isn’t about politics. It’s about protecting the progress we’ve fought so hard to achieve in cancer care and research over the past two decades.”

Elon Musk in February 8 post on X, formerly Twitter: “Can you believe that universities with tens of billions in endowments were siphoning off 60% of research award money for ‘overhead’? What a ripoff!”

On March 13, Nature encouraged its readers to take part in a survey to determine whether scientists are planning to leave the U.S.

The first question asked “are you a researcher in the U.S. who is considering leaving the country following the disruptions to science prompted by the Trump administration?”

The survey’s questions were also shared on social media and in the Nature Briefing email newsletter.

Of the 1,608 respondents who answered whether they are researchers planning to leave the U.S, 75 percent responded “yes.”

The results show that those who have recently started their scientific careers or studies are especially eager to leave. Of the 690 postgraduate researchers who responded, 548 said they were considering leaving, as well as 255 of 340 Ph.D. students.

When asked about preferred destinations, the most popular choices were Canada and Europe.

One respondent said that if they left the U.S., they would like to go “anywhere that supports science.”

A student specifically cited the loss of research support when the Trump administration shut down funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development as a reason for wanting to leave.

One Nature survey respondent said: “I am faculty and want to stay as long as I can to support my lab and students, but if the NIH is dramatically cut, we may not have a choice to stay in the U.S.”

A graduate student who works in plant genomics and agriculture said: “This is my home – I really love my country. But a lot of my mentors have been telling me to get out, right now.”

One researcher told Nature: “From what I’m hearing from the places we’re talking to, and other people who are looking to take international jobs, a lot of universities in these countries are seeing this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity. I think it has gone from ‘Can we recruit a few people?’ to ‘How many people can we actually take?’ – because the demand is there.”