Trump-Era Research Policies Drive Young Biomedical Scientists Away from Academia and the U.S., Survey Finds
核心洞察
A survey of 916 early-career biomedical researchers found the share likely to stay in the U.S. dropped from 93% to 72% — a 21-percentage-point decline — after 2025 federal science policy changes.
Likelihood of remaining in academia fell from 66% to 44%, and PhD satisfaction dropped from 92% to 76%, with foreign scientists twice as likely to consider leaving the U.S. as domestic peers.
Separately, 13% of NIH-supported labs reported losing researchers to other countries due to funding changes, and 14% said immigration policies caused candidates to turn down offers.
A sweeping set of federal science policy changes introduced in 2025 is reshaping the career intentions of America's next generation of biomedical researchers, according to a new National Bureau of Economic Research (搜索) (NBER) working paper and a separate survey of NIH-supported laboratories. The data paint a stark picture: young scientists are increasingly doubting whether to remain in academia or even stay in the United States.
The NBER study, titled Before The Exodus? Young Scientists and The Future of US Science, was conducted by Pierre Azoulay (MIT), Raffaella Sadun (Monash University), and Daniela Scur (Harvard University). The researchers surveyed 13,240 doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows working in 2,466 biomedical research laboratories across U.S. medical schools, teaching hospitals, graduate schools, and independent research institutes. They received completed responses from 916 scientists across 770 laboratories at 134 institutions.
Sharp declines across three key measures
Respondents were asked to assess their career intentions both at the time of the survey (March 2025) and retrospectively for six months prior — before the Trump administration's policy changes took effect. The results revealed significant erosion on all three dimensions measured.
Six months before the survey, 93% of respondents said they were likely or very likely to remain in the United States. By March 2025, that figure had fallen to 72% — a drop of 21 percentage points. The share of scientists likely to stay in academia fell from 66% to 44%, a decline of 22 percentage points. Satisfaction with having pursued a PhD also dropped dramatically: while 92% of respondents reported being satisfied or neutral six months earlier, only 76% did so at the time of the survey — a 16-percentage-point decline.
"In other words, a majority of young biomedical scientists came to harbor doubts about pursuing academic careers, and more than one in four young scientists who previously planned to pursue their career in the U.S. were later reconsidering that choice," the authors noted.
Foreign scientists hit hardest on U.S. retention
The declines in likelihood of staying in academia and PhD satisfaction were roughly equivalent for foreign and domestic scientists — approximately 22 and 16 percentage points respectively for both groups. However, the decline in desire to remain in the United States was about twice as large for foreign scientists (30.8 percentage points) as for domestic ones (15.8 percentage points).
Even among U.S. scientists, the findings were troubling: one in six who previously said they planned to stay in the United States now acknowledged a willingness to pursue their careers abroad.
These results held consistent across different types of scientists and laboratories. The declines in positive sentiments were found whether respondents were PhD students or postdoctoral researchers, whether they worked in small or large labs, and whether those labs enjoyed secure NIH grants or depended on more precarious funding.
NIH labs report tangible losses
The NBER findings align with a separate survey of 1,000 NIH-supported researchers reported by STAT News. That survey found that 13% of NIH-supported labs had lost researchers to other countries as a direct result of NIH funding changes. Additionally, 14% reported that immigration policies forced scientists, students, and postdocs to turn down offers to work in NIH-supported labs. Labs have also reported receiving fewer applications from international students and researchers, reflecting what the report describes as "uncertainty and confusion surrounding the current immigration and research policy environment in the United States."
Policy context and implications
The policy changes driving these shifts include the termination or freezing of billions in NIH and National Science Foundation grants, a reduction in the number of new grants being awarded by federal agencies, administration proposals to dramatically cut NIH and NSF funding in the future, the revocation of international student and scholar visas, and the targeting of several leading research universities by the administration for various allegations.
"Young scientists are the canary in the coal mine of the American scientific enterprise," the NBER authors conclude. "They have the most career flexibility, the least sunk cost in the current system, and the longest time horizons over which policy changes will affect their lives." The survey, they write, documents that the next generation of researchers "is reconsidering its commitment to American science. What can be disrupted in a single year may take a generation to rebuild."