As a startup that chose to locate in Canada, we’ve already had a dozen amazing candidates currently in the US reach out and apply for roles since we shared our thinking earlier this week [0].
The feeling of ambient immigration hostility in the US (even beyond any one specific policy) is palpable.
I think you can safely hold off on the eyelash batting for a few months. There were only 25 fellowships available, applications opened on July 4th and all have been awarded. This page on the program will tell you more:
Kurt Godel rather famously claimed to have spotted logical contradictions in the US constitution, which of course is not too controversial on its own (and was probably right given who he is), but presenting this argument in response to questions about the constitution that were given as part of his citizenship test was an insane thing to try no matter how good his logic.
The article doesn't go into details whether these academics are full professors or e.g. postdocs. Twenty-five tenured professors would be a big deal because they tend to either bring their workgroups along or rebuild them at the new university. That's where the true impact of such news lies if these are indeed teachers: these groups produce a steady stream of future experts in the form of graduates and PhDs in their respective domains. Given the timelines for careers of students and young academics, the full impact of these moves should start to show in about 5 to 10 years.
Another factor is if they're all from the same (sub)discipline. It doesn't take a lot of established researchers moving to shift a field's center of gravity somewhere else. When you start seeing research conferences that used to be in the US be held elsewhere instead, you'll know that the change has happened.
I'm on a researcher mailing-list discussing exactly this at the moment.
For the moment, the main argument for keeping some conferences within the US is the number of researchers (typically PhDs and postdocs) who couldn't attend then re-enter the US.
The article mentions paying them $587,000 each over 2 years. It also mentions at least some of the recruits were post-docs who average pay in the US is like $60k. If this is what brain drain is, where can I sign up?
> "The APART-USA fellowship is granted for a period of 48 months and must be commenced within six months of notification of the grant."
> "The APART-USA fellowship amounts to a total of EUR 500,000. 25% of this funding (in total: EUR 125,000) comes from the nominating host research institution. 75% (EUR 375,000) comes from the Fonds Zukunft Österreich (FZÖ) of the National Foundation for Research, Technology and Development (NFTE)."
> "funding can be extended by up to three months at no extra cost."
> "The fellowship covers personnel costs as well as costs for relocation, travel, materials and other costs (such as mentoring, training, etc.)."
OAW = Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften = Austrian Academy of Sciences
I was hoping the EU can capitalize on this, but remain skeptical as the EU politicians have noticed what kind of rhetoric is successful and are starting to bang the same drum louder and louder. Being anti immigration one of the main ideas. We'll see. My bet is China will be the big winner.
Recently the EU allocated billions to fund tech startups. But if you read the bare minimum demands, you'll see how suspicious it is. Like, you have to have a female co-founder, when everybody in the trade knows it's very hard to find a trustworthy co-founder of any kind.
I haven't heard of anybody getting these funds. I suspect the recipients were pre-selected before the announcement and the criteria was tailored to match them. And I also suspect, in some roundabout way, part of the money will end up in political campaigns or something.
How would you hear of somebody getting these funds? I don’t personally know anybody who’s gotten massive VC funding in the US either, but I think it does happen.
I don’t see any reason to be skeptical of the requirement to find a female co-founder, I mean it is clearly a program to promote equality, but that is an uncontroversial goal in some places.
it's very hard to find a trustworthy co-founder of any kind
that may be so, but did you check if the funding is limited to teams with at least two or more people? some funds do not allow single founders at all for whatever reason.
Give it 5-10 years and the situation could look very different. If they decide to pour tons of money into it, they could dominate like with trains or solar.
How about the opposite: the "great again" USA is very unwelcoming, that Chinese citizens who were attracted to the freedoms it once offered (a different flavour of freedom compared to the one Trump is currently offering) might now think "Sheesh, maybe let's not try to migrate to the USA and start a life there!".
You do realise Chinese form a large immigrant population in the US, right?
And as much as I dislike saying this - Chinese government doesn’t want you talking about politics. Otherwise you should be mostly fine.
While US government is going beyond politics. Pushing stuff like that autism and Tylenol connection on correlation study. That is going beyond politics and impacting academic and scientific analysis.
I don't know, personally never went there. But it doesn't seem to be throwing out babies with the bath water, as currently the case in the US. What their immigration policies are in general I don't know, but they are a knowledge hungry worldpower, and we are talking about scientists here. And as for the EU, my concern remains, there are way too many Trump copycats, and it's difficult to trust it will not go down the same road. The problems and root causes are similar. If I didn't have kids I would've left Germany for sure by now.
Because PRC is returning sea turtle / talented diasphora friendly and there's a fuckload of talented PRC born diasphora abroad who frankly has to self censor under mccarthy free speech anyways.
They are in an excellent position to capitalize on the situation: deep pockets and a shady reputation that has kept competition low, so they should have plenty of open position.
China can benefit in the short-term if talent moves there, but it's very difficult to gain citizenship in China if you're not ethnically Chinese. That probably won't matter for people just moving for work, but those looking for a better life for their children or a home would likely consider it a blocker.
There are millions of overseas Chinese descendants who already speak Chinese and are wholly or partly ethnically Chinese. That would be an easy pool to draw from first.
I wish it said more about what these researchers did, other than they were the result of cuts to things like trans policies and opposition to Palestine protests. It would be interesting to see if these are semiconductor researchers or gender studies.
Readit News
The feeling of ambient immigration hostility in the US (even beyond any one specific policy) is palpable.
0: https://aloe.inc/blog/the-best-talent-in-the-world
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/hate-toward-south-asia...
bats eyelashes, casually implements b-tree
https://stipendien.oeaw.ac.at/en/fellowships/apart-usa
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¹ https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Edge-Reason-Life-G%C3%B6del/d...
Amazingly he still passed.
For the moment, the main argument for keeping some conferences within the US is the number of researchers (typically PhDs and postdocs) who couldn't attend then re-enter the US.
We'll see how that goes.
Dead Comment
OAW Call for Nominations: https://stipendien.oeaw.ac.at/en/fellowships/apart-usa
OAW APART-USA Info: https://stipendien.oeaw.ac.at/en/fellowships/apart-usa/apart...
OAW = Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften = Austrian Academy of SciencesI haven't heard of anybody getting these funds. I suspect the recipients were pre-selected before the announcement and the criteria was tailored to match them. And I also suspect, in some roundabout way, part of the money will end up in political campaigns or something.
I don’t see any reason to be skeptical of the requirement to find a female co-founder, I mean it is clearly a program to promote equality, but that is an uncontroversial goal in some places.
that may be so, but did you check if the funding is limited to teams with at least two or more people? some funds do not allow single founders at all for whatever reason.
Because China is so much more immigration and foreigner friendly?
https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-entry-exit-k-visa...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC8f1qs3TGs
Give it 5-10 years and the situation could look very different. If they decide to pour tons of money into it, they could dominate like with trains or solar.
And as much as I dislike saying this - Chinese government doesn’t want you talking about politics. Otherwise you should be mostly fine.
While US government is going beyond politics. Pushing stuff like that autism and Tylenol connection on correlation study. That is going beyond politics and impacting academic and scientific analysis.
Two regions that have been capitalising from skilled programmers and that hardly anyone talks about are the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
For example Terence Tao speaks Cantonese.