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Danielle Beckman moved to the US from Brazil in 2017 to further her research on Alzheimer's. Eight years later, she's making plans to leave. Beckman received notice last month that her five-year $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health would not be reviewed for renewal because it contained the word "COVID," which was flagged to lose funding under President Donald Trump's crackdown on research grants at higher-education institutions. She said she didn't see how her lab's work could continue without that funding. She accepted an offer for a new job in Germany, where she plans to continue her research. She's also exploring opportunities in France that would allow her to receive more funding. Over the past couple of months, the Trump administration has cut billions of dollars in funding to universities that do not comply with its demands, such as eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Some scientists told BI that the cuts would fuel a brain drain out of the US, and countries abroad are already capitalizing on the opportunity by promoting programs to attract US researchers.
Alyssa Adams works for a lab based in Japan that studies artificial intelligence and artificial life. Adams has been going back and forth between the US and Japan for the past 2 ½ years, she said, and is planning to move to Japan permanently in a month. "It feels like we're jumping ship and it's awful, but I'm glad that we're leaving, honestly," Adams said. The funding cuts have already displaced hundreds of researchers. Columbia University's acting president, Claire Shipman, recently announced that the university would terminate 180 employees who received federal grants affected by the cuts. "We do not make these decisions lightly," Shipman said. "We are deeply committed, at Columbia, to the critical work of invention, innovation, and discovery." Adams said it'd take a long time for the US to bounce back from these losses. "We're still doing our research. We're still advancing the march of discovery and doing everything that we can as researchers in a normal way," Adams said. "We're just doing it in places where we feel more welcome and where we feel like we can be ourselves. And unfortunately, these days it's not the United States."