Summary
Trump’s team, led by NIH nominee Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, is exploring withholding federal research grants from “woke” universities deemed lacking in academic freedom.
Bhattacharya aims to tie NIH’s $25 billion in annual funding to free speech metrics and punish institutions accused of cancel culture.
He also plans reforms such as funding replication studies, limiting publication costs, and enacting term limits for NIH leaders.
Critics warn this politicization risks undermining scientific progress on critical diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s, while experts caution such changes would face significant implementation challenges.
AI folks are going to Canada and most other CS folks are going to Europe. The technical brain drain has been ongoing since the early 2000s when tech companies started offshoring and treating their employees like shit.
As always, the people who left first are the top performers and then it starts moving down the chain.
The US is still a net importer of brain though. It’s the most generous country with undergrad financial aid in the world and has many of the world’s research powerhouses, at least until Trump destroys them. As someone from the third world who has moved/plans to move (depends on how you look at it) abroad, the US is very unappealing right now. Y’all are losing the technological race one immigrant at a time.