Where will NSF employees go?
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That’s not been determined.
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Austria offer an whole package of tax benefits to relocating US scientists.
According to SIL, Austria is also offering a relocation bonus of up to $2.5M to US scientists. Bonus is for both setting up their new labs and to cover the cost of moving themselves and their families.
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I was just in Austria last week for a science conference. It was wonderful. Perhaps I should look into moving there (joking but maybe I shouldn’t be?)
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Innsbruck is #4 on our contingency list…
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From Science
Roughly one in five recipients of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) prestigious Graduate Research Fellowships Program (GRFP) typically works in the life sciences. However, there’s nary an ecologist, neuroscientist, or molecular biologist in the latest batch of 500 fellows announced earlier this month. At the same time, computer scientists captured a much larger share of awards, which provide an annual stipend of $37,000 for 3 years, than they have done in previous rounds.
NSF isn’t saying why this cohort looks so different by field of study than the 1000 fellows announced 2 months earlier. But the new distribution appears to align with President Donald Trump’s push to prioritize artificial intelligence and quantum information science.
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Spoke with an old friend over the weekend. He is a chaired full professor in physics & material science at top public university. Member of the National Academy of Arts & Science. Tons of awards & recognitions. He had all 3 of his NSF grants terminated. His research groups will be disbanded and his grad students/post docs orphaned.
Friend was very distraught and upset. Said he will likely be forced to retire this summer.
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I too would be distraught. All that irreplaceable work, lost - stellar scholars&researchers left with nothing, scattered and from whose expertise the public will never benefit.. I would be in mourning.
(We need a sad hug emoji)
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In other bad news for science majors…
Indiana University To Discontinue More Than 100 Academic Programs (and Purdue cutting 83)
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It’s paywalled for me, are there links in there to IU or Purdue’s own announcements?
I haven’t seen any formal announcements from the schools.
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And another one bites the dust…
A former co-resident friend of D1 is leaving the US. Her friend, faculty at Yale SOM, lost all 3 of her NIH grants this spring and emigrating to Canada where she has accepted a position as faculty at U Toronto SOM. She has already formally renounced her US citizenship.
Out of residency class of 15, this makes 3 of D’s former co-residents who have left the US for Canada in the past 6 months.
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It seems like a drastic step to renounce US citizenship. Does this mean she already had Canadian citizenship (you must have some other citizenship before you can renounce US citizenship)? I think there’s a big difference between the decision to move to a country where you or your family came from vs one where you have no historic ties. Most Americans won’t have a passport for an attractive alternative country they’d want to live and work in, and won’t have the qualifications needed for many jobs in those countries.
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I assumed dual citizen. If you are not planning to live in or return to the US then maintaining US citizenship can be quite onerous due to the tax requirements (unlike most countries, US does not work on residence based tax and you are required to submit IRS returns and potentially pay tax annually regardless where you’re based or how long you’ve been there as long as you are a citizen or green card holder). It does seem drastic - and at the same time an indication that this talent is forever lost to the US.
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I’ll bold that “return to the US” as well. I’ve heard anecdotally that it can be difficult to return to the US even for a visit after renouncing citizenship.
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Yep (but we don’t know that’s the case in any of these 3 examples from wayoutwestmom’s D’s residency class.) I have every confidence that a physician is more than capable of weighing the pros and cons of retaining US citizenship. I wouldn’t be surprised if these physicians had other opportunities beyond the Canadian option that the one took. Some physicians and other science/tech people are literally being barraged with offers from many countries…it’s up to each of them to decide how attractive a given offer is. Some offers even come with fast tracked citizenship options.
True. As always, it’s the people who have skills that are in demand and/or financial means and/or family connections who are most able to leave the country.
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I’ve heard several of these pitches and offers of grants/support in the past 12-18 months (UK embassy people trying to persuade expat Brits in Silicon Valley to come home and set up tech companies there, particularly in AI). I wasn’t at all impressed, given what I know of the business climate and economic outlook there (and the high levels of resentment to people getting/being rich). That’s amplified by recent tax rises that are driving the wealthy away and would prevent us from ever being able to move back (for example dying in the UK would cost millions in inheritance tax).
Perhaps attitudes amongst academic researchers are different (getting rich is generally not their biggest concern), especially if they have recently lost US government grants. But I don’t think business people will leave, and given the money that’s being thrown around in AI right now, I don’t think many of those researchers will leave either.
Even my kids are not going to move to the UK for work, since the job situation for new graduates is even worse than in the US. Maybe one would consider studying for a (cheap!) masters there if they don’t have any better opportunities here. My youngest wants to continue studying/researching in astrophysics so the NASA cuts are disastrous. But it’s unlikely that other countries will provide sufficient funding to pick up the slack, instead this pure science research just won’t happen.
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The physician I mentioned was dual US and Canadian citizen. She needed to renounce her US citizen to end a legal obligation to the US military,
The other two were US citizens with no ties to Canada.
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I don’t disagree, but we weren’t talking about business people, I guess that would be for another thread.
Also agree on your UK points, London is currently seeing a net decrease of affluent business people. FWIW, it seems many of the offers to science peeps in the US has not been coming from the UK, at least based on this thread.
The researchers I know who are considering relocating to other countries are looking at Canada and EU countries, not UK. Just a datapoint.
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