Talent exodus from US grows as Canada recruits 48 researchers from top American universities

As the Donald Trump administration cuts funding for university research and tightens its grip on academic activity, a growing number of researchers are leaving the United States.

Twenty-one Canadian universities announced Thursday that they would hire 64 new researchers, including 48 from American institutions such as Harvard, Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The New York Times reported Thursday (local time).

The Canadian government is funding the hiring push. Ottawa announced a CA$1.7 billion talent recruitment plan last December and committed to financing universities' efforts to bring in researchers.

The first round of hiring is worth CA$500 million in total, and Canada plans to recruit an additional 63 researchers next year.

The number of American researchers heading to neighboring Canada in protest of Trump administration policies continues to grow.

Nutritionist Kevin Hall, who says federal authorities censored his research on ultra-processed foods, left the National Institutes of Health last year and joined the University of Ottawa. Seth Guikema, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Michigan who studies natural disaster modeling, also decided to move to Western University in Canada as uncertainty over research funding mounted. These researchers argue that the Trump administration is undermining academic freedom by restricting the admission and stay of foreign students and cutting support for educational equity programs.

Phillip Zamore, director of the RNA Therapeutics Institute at the University of Massachusetts, told The New York Times: "I thought the United States was the country most committed to improving human lives through science, but one day I woke up and that was no longer true."

Canada has seized on the turmoil in American academia as an opportunity to attract talent. Melanie Joly, Canada's minister of industry, said at a university hiring announcement event in Vancouver on Thursday: "While some countries are cutting back on research and turning their backs on academic freedom, we are doubling down on our investment in science."

Joly described the initiative as the world's "largest talent recruitment project," adding, "In a few years, we will look back on today's announcement and understand the lasting impact of the choices we made."

Meanwhile, Canada has expanded eligibility for citizenship applications to people who can demonstrate Canadian ancestry, and thousands of Americans have since applied for citizenship, The New York Times reported.