Kartik Sheth, 53, is an astrophysicist and, until a few weeks ago, was the associate chief scientist at NASA. On March 10, he got an unexpected email: “I regret to inform you that you are being affected by a [reduction-in-force] action. … Therefore, you will be separated from NASA at the close of business on April 10, 2025.”
One of 23 NASA employees laid off that day, including everyone in the Office of the Chief Scientist, Sheth is now looking for a job – anywhere. On Friday, he arrived in Paris to attend a conference and check out the environment for scientific research.
“I don’t know if I’ll find a job in America given the cuts to science,” he said. “I think we could have a pretty major brain drain in the country. … I think people are going to start to wonder if this is the place for me to continue to do science.’”
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With billions of dollars in research grants eliminated or frozen by the Trump administration, scientists across America in a broad array of fields face an uncertain future and the possibility of layoffs. An untold number like Sheth are looking abroad, thinking of continuing their careers far from the turmoil here.
While it’s unclear how many will actually make the move, American scientists are being actively recruited by countries including France, Spain, Germany and China that are hoping to reverse the flow of expertise into the United States that has been the norm for decades.
“People who were certain that they were going to spend their careers in the U.S., and stay in the U.S. for the next phase, are now totally reconsidering,” said David Baker, a biochemist at the University of Washington who shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2024.
The United States now faces a “wholesale change in mentality” across the science community as a result of President Donald Trump’s actions, he said.
At an event at Paris’s prestigious Sorbonne University this month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled a fund of 500 million euros ($560 million) aimed at making the European Union a “magnet for researchers.” French President Emmanuel Macron – who has been making a hard push for global talent to “choose France” – pledged an additional 100 million euros ($112 million) to help researchers settle in France.
Macron has done this before: In 2017, on the same day the first Trump administration said it was pulling out of the Paris climate accord, Macron launched a “Make Our Planet Great Again” initiative, inviting foreign researchers to live and work in France. This year’s cohort of 60 fellows, who receive monthly stipends and relocation support, will begin their program in September.
In Germany, Cornelia Woll, president of the Hertie School, a private social sciences university, was one of eight scholars behind a recent open letter urging the country’s leaders – through a proposed program aimed at international academics – to “give America’s top researchers a new home!”
Woll said she has asked American colleagues, “What can we do for you?”
“The only answer I’ve gotten is: ‘Keep a job open for us in case we lose our fight,’” she said.
Britain’s Labour Party government is expected to soon announce plans to spend 50 million pounds ($66 million) to attract and relocate about 10 teams of international researchers, according to an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said he was “hearing from colleagues that even quite senior professors at American universities are now applying for more junior posts.”
The interest isn’t only from scientists. The head of a humanities department at a British university said a recent job posting drew “more than usual” interest from American academics – including those already on the tenure track.
In addition to his layoffs and budget cuts, Trump’s immigration policies have generated consternation in the scientific community because many researchers – including early-career postdoctoral workers who will fuel the next era of innovation – are foreign-born.
According to the National Postdoctoral Association, an advocacy organization, there are about 72,000 postdocs in the U.S., nearly 60 percent of them from outside the country. Many – both U.S. and foreign-born – are looking abroad as research funding is hit, said Thomas Kimbis, chief executive of the association.
Foreign-born postdocs will face uncertainty when their visas end, he said, making them more likely to start searching immediately for jobs abroad.
“We want them to be able to stay in the U.S. … We need them, and they’re giving us a strategic advantage,” Kimbis said.
Working in European countries offers some advantages, such as long holidays, a year’s maternity leave and free health care. Language is not an obstacle for Americans, as English has become the working language in many European laboratories.
There is no comprehensive data on the number of departing scientists. But to date, there has been no mass exodus of researchers and there are plenty of reasons to believe it may not happen. U.S. laboratories and universities pay more than their European counterparts, offer more administrative support and arguably convey more professional prestige.
The facilities in the U.S. are typically impressive. Anand Menon, a politics professor at King’s College London, said that when he went on a year-long sabbatical in New York, he felt “like a prince.”
Meanwhile, many British universities are undergoing funding cuts themselves.
“American institutions pay very large salaries, which are significantly higher than those in Europe, in Germany, in France – and here we must also find flexible solutions,” said Patrick Cramer, president of the Max Planck Society, one of Germany’s most prominent research organizations.
Almost lost in the concerns about a potential U.S. brain drain is the fact that science has become globally collaborative. Directives from the White House can reverberate across the world. Cramer said he fears that the Trump policies will damage research in Europe.
The U.S. is currently the Max Planck Society’s most significant international partner, with about 1,000 active collaborations. Climate science projects are among those most vulnerable to disruption, Cramer said.
“Since the Second World War, American research has been a motor for science worldwide,” he said. “And the transatlantic axis in particular was also important in keeping this engine running. … All of that is now endangered.”
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‘Do more … with less’
The U.S. scientific enterprise has traditionally enjoyed bipartisan political support, with taxpayer dollars flowing generously from federal agencies to universities and institutions that, in turn, have attracted brilliant minds from across the planet. In opinion surveys, the scientific community enjoys higher public trust than many other sectors of U.S. society.
But Trump is determined to shrink and re-prioritize the functions of the federal government. The administration’s actions have roiled agencies across the executive branch – and science and health agencies haven’t gotten a pass.
Trump’s budget request to Congress proposes large cuts in their funding, including a 56 percent cut to the National Science Foundation, a nearly 50 percent cut to NASA’s science directorate and a roughly 40 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health.
The administration has already frozen or cut billions of dollars in research grants to universities. Some of the cuts are driven by administration priorities, including terminations of research involving climate change, covid, vaccines, health disparities and anything deemed to touch on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
In a less obvious but consequential set of bureaucratic maneuvers, the normal pace of grant reviews and disbursements has slowed to a crawl. Funding agencies may not be able to get their money out the door by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
The administration also stunned the academic world by announcing a 15 percent cap on overhead costs for research, a move held up in court battles. Many universities count on a 50 percent or higher formula for these “indirect costs.” The specter of a major drop in federal funding is already rippling through universities as they pare back opportunities for postdoctoral positions, cut internships and, in some cases, lay off researchers.
“We intend to do more, a lot more, with less,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in testimony May 14 before a House committee.
The long-term effects of these moves remain unclear. Although the Republican-controlled Congress has put up minimal resistance to Trump’s policies, some lawmakers may try to preserve targeted programs that bring money to their states and districts.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Connecticut), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, spared no words as she addressed Kennedy. She suggested he has been “promoting quackery” and “endangering the health of the American people with pseudoscience, fearmongering and misinformation.”
She added, “China and Europe are taking advantage of this disaster by recruiting American scientists away from the United States.”
Sheth, the former NASA astrophysicist, grew up in India and came with his family to the U.S. when he was 14. As a child, he loved “Star Trek” and dreamed of being a scientist, or even an astronaut. His dream came true, taking him all the way to NASA, where he worked for nine years, eight months and 27 days.
He lives in the Navy Yard area of D.C. and has family in New Jersey and Virginia. He is not eager to leave the country. What he would like most is to find a job in Washington.
For younger scientists who have yet to build out their networks or put down as many roots, taking a big leap to a distant land can be easier.
Kevin Bird, 31, is in a pivotal part of his scientific career, studying plant genomes at the University of California at Davis, supported by a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship. He long assumed his next step would be building a laboratory at a university in the U.S.
Then January came.
Without explanation, the Trump administration froze a National Science Foundation payment system that Bird and others rely on for their salaries – a temporary but consequential pause. The growing uncertainty around science funding meant that the already competitive job market for a faculty job was tightening as universities slowed hiring.
“I was staring down what I imagine the next year in the U.S. would look like,” Bird said. “I was really worried that the tracks were being ripped up in front of me and there was no short-term future.”
Fortuitously, a postdoctoral position in Bird’s field opened at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in Richmond, England. He applied in February and will start in July. Bird is searching for an apartment in London for himself, his wife and two cats.
In a season of despair, particularly for early-career scientists who are seeing job opportunities freeze or disappear, Bird feels lucky. The job lasts four years, long enough to build connections in Europe and determine from afar if American science weathers the storm.
“This is a really good length of time to basically see if the U.S. settles down and recovers from what happens,” Bird said.