By Marcelo Jauregui-Volpe
On April 26, Danish Chamber of Commerce CEO Brian Mikkelsen made an offer to researchers in the United States on Instagram: “To all the brilliant researchers in the U.S. feeling uncertain right now: Denmark is open – and we need you!” He continued: “Across the Atlantic, we’re watching with concern as politics begins to overshadow science.”
With Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” playing in the background, Mikkelsen talked about layoffs and funding cuts across American science and health research agencies, and announced that the Danish Chamber of Commerce will work with the Danish Society of Engineers to create a “fast-track initiative to welcome up to 200 American researchers over the next three years.”
A few weeks earlier, Spain’s Minister of Science and Innovation Diana Morant also announced an expansion of the nation’s program to attract international scientists. In her announcement, Morant specifically called out “researchers who are in the United States and are being scorned by the current administration.” In addition to awarding $1 million to each researcher, Spain also offered scientists coming from the United States an additional $200,000 for their research project.
Denmark and Spain join France, Australia, Norway, and several other nations that are trying to attract scientists in the United States with programs that offer support in the form of research funding, relocation services, and access to state-of-the-art labs.
In a statement announcing Australia’s Global Talent Attraction Program, Australian Academy of Science President Chennupati Jagadish asserted that “Australia has an urgent and unparalleled opportunity to attract the smartest minds leaving the United States to seed capability here and nurture the next generation of scientists and innovators.”
While these recruitment efforts and programs are in their early stages, some scientists are already trying to relocate.
Alyssa Adams told Business Insider that her Japan-based lab studying artificial intelligence had received a flurry of applications from scientists in the United States.
"It feels like we’re jumping ship and it's awful, but I'm glad that we're leaving, honestly," said Adams, who now plans to live in Japan full-time.
Business Insider also spoke with Danielle Beckman about the cancellation of her long COVID study by the National Institutes of Health. Beckman, a native of Brazil who moved to the United States in 2017 with dreams of continuing her Alzheimer’s research and becoming a professor, recently accepted a job offer in Germany, where she intends to continue her work.
“I still think I can contribute a lot. It’s just that there is no opportunity here anymore,” Beckman said.
Seventy-five percent of the more than 1,600 United States-based scientists that responded to a poll from Nature said that they are considering leaving the country due to research funding cuts and disruptions to science. Nature found that this “trend was particularly pronounced among early-career researchers,” a demographic that is currently being actively recruited by South Korea, Ireland, and other countries. Europe and Canada were the most mentioned destinations for relocation, according to Nature.
Nature also analyzed its jobs board and found “that US scientists submitted 32% more applications for jobs abroad between January and March 2025 than during the same period in 2024.”
Some higher education and science leaders warn that the United States is in the early stages of a brain drain. In an opinion essay published in Foreign Affairs, Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Emeritus Rafael Reif asserted that American science leadership is in jeopardy because the Trump administration’s “funding cuts, academic censorship, and hostile immigration policies” are causing both American and international STEM talent to look outside the United States to establish their careers.
“If the United States cannot even convene the world’s best scientists, it will struggle to preserve the open exchange and free inquiry that it has championed for so long – and that science thrives on,” he said.
Marcelo Jauregui-Volpe is editorial and communications assistant at AAU.