Despite representing only 4% of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for over half of science Nobel Prizes awarded since 2000, hosts seven of The Times Higher Education Top 10 science universities, and incubates firms such as Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Pfizer Inc. that turn federally funded discoveries into billion-dollar markets.
The domestic science and technology talent pool alone cannot sustain this research output. The U.S. is reliant on a steady and strong influx of foreign scientists – a brain gain. In 2021, foreign-born people constituted 43% of doctorate-level scientists and engineers in the U.S. They make up a significant share of America’s elite researchers: Since 2000, 37 of the 104 U.S. Nobel laureates in the hard sciences were born outside the country.
This scientific brain gain is being threatened by the Trump administration, which is using federal research funding, scholarships and fellowships as leverage against universities, freezing billions of dollars in grants and contracts to force compliance with its ideological agenda.
Citing national security concerns, the White House has also targeted visas for Harvard University’s international students and instructed embassies worldwide to halt visa interviews for all international students, citing national security and alleged institutional misconduct. Against a backdrop of court injunctions and legal appeals, the government continues its heightened “national security” vetting, so thousands of international scholars remain in limbo.
These measures, combined with travel bans, intensified scrutiny and revocations of existing visas, have disrupted research collaborations and threaten the nation’s continued status as a global leader in science and innovation.
The U.S. research brain gain starts with the 281,000 foreign science, technology, engineering and math graduate students and 38,000 foreign STEM postdoctoral scholars who annually come to the U.S. I am one of them. After earning my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in South Africa, I left in 1986 to avoid the apartheid-era military service, completed my chemistry doctorate and postdoc in the U.S., and joined the United States’ brain gain. It’s an opportunity that today’s visa climate might have denied me.
Incentives for the best and brightest foreign science students to come to the U.S. are diminishing at the same time its competitors are increasing their efforts to attract the strongest STEM researchers. For instance, the University of Hong Kong is courting stranded Harvard students with dedicated scholarships, housing and credit-transfer help. A French university program, Safe Place for Science, drew so many American applicants that it had to shut the portal early.
Immigrants import new ways of thinking. They come from other cultures and have learned their science in different educational systems, which place different emphases on rote learning, historical understanding and interdisciplinary research. They often bring an alternative perspective that a homogeneous scientific community cannot match.
The economic stakes are high. Growth models suggest that scientific advances now account for a majority of productivity gains in high income countries.
Ongoing cuts and uncertainties in federal funding and visa policy now jeopardize America’s scientific leadership, and with it the nation’s long-term economic growth.
Marc Zimmer is a professor of chemistry at Connecticut College. Distributed by The Conversation and The Associated Press.
