Now would be a fantastic time for governments worldwide to fund universities to hire folks away from the US.
When I was on the academic job market in 2018, I had offers in both the US and Canada. Ultimately, a combination of politics and grant funding led me to choose Canada. I saw how little disregard the Rs had for science funding, and how hard it already was to get grant funding in the US. I was worried that another R administration could slash research funding, but I never imagined it would be this bad.
Private companies already fund a ton of research in my area, but such funding usually comes with restrictions and demands that often conflict with the core goals of open academic research. So, NSF grants and the like are still crucial for funding basic scientific research that, while not immediately of commercial value (and thus not usually funded by private interests), often becomes commercially important years after being published.
My heart goes out to all of my colleagues and connections in the US who are likely going to be impacted by cuts in the next few years. It’s going to be a really brutal few years, and I hope our community can come out of this in one piece.
Indiscriminately hobbling your best institutions is like setting your middle-aged self up for recovery after falling off the workout wagon. I know because I'm an expert on falling off that wagon... One month off requires three or four months to just get back to the previous baseline. Three months off, and I need a year.
Hopefully enough of the culture of curiosity and open-minded inventiveness stays so that they have a fighting chance of making a comeback.
Otherwise, the US of A stands to experience net-brain-drain at a scale rivalling only India since Y2K to present day, and the former USSR after its heyday.
Lots of USAID-funded research in the US too - there are about a dozen labs researching food security that have been shut down at various US universities as part of the Feed the Future Initiative.
I would expect that this exactly what the people who voted for the current government wanted. I would like to learn more what they were researching, though.
Or prevent. One of the many reasons people are happy about the ending of funding of USAID and NED is because these groups were major weapons of regime change and political agitation around the world. This foments instability and conflict in other nations. And in these conflicts the people most hurt are just the 'normal' people in a country who couldn't care less about the geopolitics, one way or the other.
Foreign aid with no strings attached or ulterior motives could be a good thing, but it mostly doesn't exist. That's tens of billions of dollars you could be spending on your own infrastructure, education, welfare, and so forth. The powers that be want something in return for that money, and that something isn't just a warm fuzzy feeling from doing right.
> That's tens of billions of dollars you could be spending on your own infrastructure, education, welfare, and so forth.
I don't see that money being reallocated domestically to infrastructure, education, or welfare. The opposite in fact.
Also, what you're arguing seems paradoxical? Either these programs are selfishly serving the interests of the US, and the US is benefiting, or they are of no benefit to the US and are useless.
This is all setting aside the manner in which these funding cessations happened, what the other "many reasons" were exactly, and why those reasons were important to the one person responsible for those cessations (to the extent we can even explain what actually happened). The question of how is probably as important as why.
The scientific research community is torn asunder right now. I have never seen moods this bad. It is weird to see one of the US's greatest strengths thrown away for little gain.
Every single economic analysis of NSF and NIH research funding that I have seen has shown economic return on investment from $2.5-$10 for every dollar of science spending.
Cutting off the future of science feels a lot like "saving money" by eliminating retirement savings. Sure, the money isn't going into the retirement account and now you can buy more beer, but it's just sacrificing far more future gains for a short term gain.
My partner works in academic research. Morale is extremely low with many people exiting the industry entirely because of the uncertainty.
This is generational damage being done. Most of these people will not want to work in the public sector again, or at least anytime soon. The next admin will have difficulty coming back from this. This is by design.
> many people exiting the industry entirely because of the uncertainty.
It might be time to exit the US.
"Last week, Aix Marseille University, France’s largest university ... announced that it is already seeing great interest from scientists at NASA, Yale, Stanford, and other American schools and government agencies, and that it wants to expand the program to other schools and European countries to absorb all the researchers who want to leave the United States."
This happened in particle physics in the 90s. What you'll see is Europeans being hired in 20 years to fill all the positions, when the continent has LHC and the US doesn't. I think there was also a smaller, but also very significant setback at the start of the Bush Jr. era. We're stuck in a vicious cycle where every cancer researcher votes for the candidate they don't think will fire them, and then the other candidate tries to fire everyone who they know didn't vote for them.
You have not been paying attention. No tenured researcher was. Plenty of post-docs were, the moment the grant money did not come through. If they have to resort to firing professors, the whole thing is neck-deep in shit. You need at least a decade for someone to end up there. If they leave, they will take their experience with them.
>Every single economic analysis of NSF and NIH research funding that I have seen has shown economic return on investment from $2.5-$10 for every dollar of science spending.
But the academic institution didn't spend money on science. The did spend money on propaganda and promoting ideology.
And I hope, oh how I hope, that the positions eliminated in the US are administrative positions. That researchers, teaching assistants, lab technicians will keep their jobs.
There are a lot of administrative staff at research universities whose jobs support... research. Is there bloat and are there too many managers/VPs? Probably somewhat, but the more of the grant administration work that gets pushed back down to PIs and research groups, the less time they have for research. They will also make many mistakes in both grant applications and how they spend the money, because the regulations are byzantine. That will jeopardize future funding and possibly get them penalized.
If it goes down how I'm seeing it in other universities and government labs.. highly unlikely. A ratio like 1:1 or 2:1 is still horrible, and those are big numbers.
Likewise, it's miserable for the people who are left. Research efficiency is plummeting due to having to do nonsense work and the funding path being murky for the next few years. Firing support staff and stopping funding paths means researchers must spend even more time to get fewer grants accepted.
Full Title: Johns Hopkins University slashes 2,000 jobs after Trump administration grant cut
> ... 247 domestic U.S. workers for the academic institution and another 1,975 positions outside the U.S. in 44 countries.
> The job cuts impact the university's Bloomberg School of Public Health, its medical school and affiliated non-profit for international health, Jhpiego.
While "John Hopkins U" gets the clicks, it sounds like this is mostly about a non-profit doing international public health stuff.
Presumably a lot of the funds in the terminated grants were for running programs that had other direct costs beyond pure headcount…
That’s the thing that isn’t being reported well, IMHO: federal grants aren’t just gifts that the government gives universities, they are contracts for universities to perform services (conducting very specific research programs with well-specified deliverables, running very specific educational activities for carefully defined populations of learners, etc.).
Grants/contracts aren't necessarily just for one year and often the numbers are about obligations and not outlays.
I don't know which specific grants were cut but here's a random example[1] of one (which is probably(?) not involved). In this example it's over multiple decades with ~$253 obligated but (assuming site accuracy) only $53 million has been outlayed.
It would be nice if media reporting included detailed information though.
Salaries are rarely the biggest expense in lab science and it's easy for a bench scientist to spend more on reagents in a day then they will make. Then there is all the very pricy equipment that is necessary, the cost of disposal of waste, the fume hoods and other extremely expensive real estate....
The overhead on a software is basically zero dollars but it's very different for science.
Readit News
When I was on the academic job market in 2018, I had offers in both the US and Canada. Ultimately, a combination of politics and grant funding led me to choose Canada. I saw how little disregard the Rs had for science funding, and how hard it already was to get grant funding in the US. I was worried that another R administration could slash research funding, but I never imagined it would be this bad.
Private companies already fund a ton of research in my area, but such funding usually comes with restrictions and demands that often conflict with the core goals of open academic research. So, NSF grants and the like are still crucial for funding basic scientific research that, while not immediately of commercial value (and thus not usually funded by private interests), often becomes commercially important years after being published.
My heart goes out to all of my colleagues and connections in the US who are likely going to be impacted by cuts in the next few years. It’s going to be a really brutal few years, and I hope our community can come out of this in one piece.
Hopefully enough of the culture of curiosity and open-minded inventiveness stays so that they have a fighting chance of making a comeback.
Otherwise, the US of A stands to experience net-brain-drain at a scale rivalling only India since Y2K to present day, and the former USSR after its heyday.
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Here's one: https://ipmnewsroom.org/trump-administration-makes-cancellat...
And how many it used to prevent for comparatively little cost:
https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/0-000-25-0...
Foreign aid with no strings attached or ulterior motives could be a good thing, but it mostly doesn't exist. That's tens of billions of dollars you could be spending on your own infrastructure, education, welfare, and so forth. The powers that be want something in return for that money, and that something isn't just a warm fuzzy feeling from doing right.
I don't see that money being reallocated domestically to infrastructure, education, or welfare. The opposite in fact.
Also, what you're arguing seems paradoxical? Either these programs are selfishly serving the interests of the US, and the US is benefiting, or they are of no benefit to the US and are useless.
This is all setting aside the manner in which these funding cessations happened, what the other "many reasons" were exactly, and why those reasons were important to the one person responsible for those cessations (to the extent we can even explain what actually happened). The question of how is probably as important as why.
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Every single economic analysis of NSF and NIH research funding that I have seen has shown economic return on investment from $2.5-$10 for every dollar of science spending.
Cutting off the future of science feels a lot like "saving money" by eliminating retirement savings. Sure, the money isn't going into the retirement account and now you can buy more beer, but it's just sacrificing far more future gains for a short term gain.
Foolish at best, and traitorous at worst.
This is generational damage being done. Most of these people will not want to work in the public sector again, or at least anytime soon. The next admin will have difficulty coming back from this. This is by design.
It might be time to exit the US.
"Last week, Aix Marseille University, France’s largest university ... announced that it is already seeing great interest from scientists at NASA, Yale, Stanford, and other American schools and government agencies, and that it wants to expand the program to other schools and European countries to absorb all the researchers who want to leave the United States."
https://www.404media.co/nasa-yale-and-stanford-scientists-co...
Not for you, of course. But for other people. You should be happy for them. Maybe they'll trickle some down on you.
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Also, there are things like this: https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/umass-disbands-its-en...
This is a lost class. Do it for 4 years and you have a lost generation.
But the academic institution didn't spend money on science. The did spend money on propaganda and promoting ideology.
Why are you spewing inaccurate propaganda talking points if propaganda is bad?
Likewise, it's miserable for the people who are left. Research efficiency is plummeting due to having to do nonsense work and the funding path being murky for the next few years. Firing support staff and stopping funding paths means researchers must spend even more time to get fewer grants accepted.
Teaching assistants are different, those are paid by the university so classes will continue. Only the science gets cut.
> ... 247 domestic U.S. workers for the academic institution and another 1,975 positions outside the U.S. in 44 countries.
> The job cuts impact the university's Bloomberg School of Public Health, its medical school and affiliated non-profit for international health, Jhpiego.
While "John Hopkins U" gets the clicks, it sounds like this is mostly about a non-profit doing international public health stuff.
Not sure that adds up...
That’s the thing that isn’t being reported well, IMHO: federal grants aren’t just gifts that the government gives universities, they are contracts for universities to perform services (conducting very specific research programs with well-specified deliverables, running very specific educational activities for carefully defined populations of learners, etc.).
I don't know which specific grants were cut but here's a random example[1] of one (which is probably(?) not involved). In this example it's over multiple decades with ~$253 obligated but (assuming site accuracy) only $53 million has been outlayed.
It would be nice if media reporting included detailed information though.
[1] https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_UM1AI068632_7529
The overhead on a software is basically zero dollars but it's very different for science.