Brain Drain?
by Jerry Seib.
Is the U.S. starting to lose what used to be called “the war for talent?” Having won it for 8 decades, it’s hard to believe the U.S. might be losing it. But evidence is piling up that some of the most talented scientists, mathematicians, technologists, and STEM PhD candidates are either not coming to or leaving the U.S. to do their work or pursue their studies. Some of the most talented are returning to China, after decades of working in the United States.
I asked Jerry Seib to write a piece for us about this “issue”. Is brain drain a real and pressing concern? Is it happening at a worrisome scale? Or is “the trend” over-stated and ‘the story” over-played by a Trump-hostile news media?
The result is the post below:
Belgium is doing it, as are France and the European Union as a whole. Canada recently announced it will spend $1.7 billion to get in on the act. Not surprisingly, China isn’t going to be left behind.
The international trend in question? It’s an effort to lure away from the U.S. scientists alarmed by the Trump administration’s cutbacks in research funding, or shut out by the American crackdown on immigration. All told, this international move to pick off talent means the U.S. is at risk of a damaging brain drain from its university labs and research institutes.
Indeed, a few signs of a brain drain already can be seen. The potential for further damage is highest in the race for dominance in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and in health research.
America’s vulnerability to this new poaching campaign arises on two fronts. First, the Trump administration entered office intent on slashing funding for university research projects, particularly those funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Some of that funding has been clawed back through ongoing lawsuits, and through congressional actions. Still, the uncertainty has paused or slowed many research projects, frozen the hiring of new researchers in some cases, and sown doubts about the future of such work.
At the same time, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has made it harder for research institutions and universities to bring in international talent, most notably by imposing a $100,000 fee for each H-1B visa issued. The H-1B visa has long been used to attract highly skilled workers from abroad.
Critics, including those in the Trump administration, charge the H-1B program also has been abused by businesses who have used it merely to supplant American workers with cheaper foreigners. Still, the effect of the new policy has been to make it harder for businesses and much harder for universities to use the visas to bring in scientists from abroad. “Immigration policy has become a critical tool for labor and economic strategy,” says a report issued a few weeks ago by the Niskanen Center, a nonpartisan think tank. “But as governments around the world compete for valuable workplace talent, the United States has gone in the opposite direction by adding new restrictions on legal immigration for high-skilled workers.”
For its part, the Trump administration makes no secret of its desire to see the U.S. depend less on international expertise. The national security strategy the administration released last month declares that “we cannot allow meritocracy to be used as a justification to open America’s labor market to the world in the name of finding ‘global talent’ that undercuts American workers. In our every principle and action, America and Americans must always come first.”
It’s hard to gauge the immediate impact of the Trump administration’s actions. Early in the Trump term, some U.S. universities froze admissions into their doctoral programs because of the uncertainty over funding for projects on which graduate students work. A university in France this summer made a splash by announcing the arrival of a group of fleeing American academics. A survey by Nature magazine found that 1,200 scientists—three-quarters of those surveyed—said they were considering leaving the U.S., while applications by U.S. scientists seeking jobs abroad jumped.
More recently, in the Netherlands, an analysis of immigration data found that last year, through November, 6,690 Americans applied for Dutch work, family or study permits, the highest in a decade. Many of the applications came in those seeking “knowledge and talent” permits, designed for highly educated workers in specialized jobs.
By one measure, graduate-student enrollment at American universities dropped significantly this fall, although by another enrollment in doctoral programs specifically actually ticked up.
Chris Glass, a professor at Boston College who studies American policies on attracting international talent, cautions that trends in research change slowly, meaning that advantages the U.S. has built up over decades as a premier destination for scientists and researchers won’t disappear overnight.
“Infrastructure is very expensive to build, and we have spent decades building that,” he says. “And so you don’t lose competitive advantage overnight.” But, he adds, “you can kind of slowly erode the things that have made the U.S. a predictable destination for top students.”
What has undoubtedly changed is other nations’ appetite to capture scientists and researchers who otherwise might go to the U.S. Over the summer, the United Kingdom launched a new program to disperse money to 10 of its research organizations to enable them to attract international scientific talent. “This government-funded initiative sends a powerful message: the UK is open to the world’s best researchers, and we are ready to invest in their success,” said Christopher Smith, the UK Research and Innovation International Champion.
France has created a fellowship designed specifically to attract U.S. graduate students, while the European Union has launched a continent-wide initiative to lure international scientists. Canada announced last month that it will spend $1.7 billion on programs “that will attract leading international researchers to Canada.”
And China has been actively wooing back from the U.S. Chinese math and science experts, who have constituted the largest group of foreign researchers in the U.S.
All told, Professor Glass of Boston College says the U.S. scientific community faces “significant headwinds” that largely are the result of what he calls “incoherence” in government policies. But he also argues that difficulties in attracting the kinds of international talent that have fueled American competitiveness in the past aren’t inevitable going forward.
In a recent piece in the Washington Post, he argued for specific changes in the U.S. visa system, including fast-tracking legal status for artificial intelligence and quantum computing engineers, and paving a wider path for foreign students who earn science and technology PhDs from American universities.
There is bipartisan support for such moves, he notes. But whether the Trump administration, with its America-first mindset is interested remains an open question.
Jerry Seib served as The Wall Street Journal’s Executive Washington Editor and wrote the weekly “Capital Journal” column for 29 years. He is the author of ‘We Should Have Seen It Coming” a book about the transformation of the Republican Party and American politics. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Dole Institute of Politics. Happily for us, he is also a contributor to News Items and Political News Items.
Jerry, I read in many publications that most European countries have systematically harmed their own ability to create research/innovation centers through overregulation. This posting appears to indicate that these same countries are now recruiting researchers/innovators. Are these two in conflict or will it all "work out" for these coutries and folks?