Canada hires 48 scholars from top U.S. universities
Canada hires away nearly 50 US scholars File under: brain drain; academic freedom www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/w...
Asheesh Kapur Siddique31Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council is investing $7.5 million in this academic hiring initiative; meanwhile Trump is defunding the NSF's Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences - to say nothing of its attacks on the NEH www.canada.ca/en/impact-pl...
Paul Francois3Now we also need more funding for everyone to be competitive…
Past American dominance in science is not due to a few dozen “top scholars.” It’s due to America 🇺🇸 spending ENORMOUSLY more on science than other countries and distributing it widely. Canada 🇨🇦 boasting about attracting “top talent” of a few dozen people is not serious. And not US “brain drain.”
Zen Faulkes83The real American 🇺🇸 “brain drain” isn’t that a few established scholars might get new jobs outside the US, it’s the enormous number of grad students - particularly international grad students - who can’t or won’t study in the US now or in years to come. That’s the body blow.
Annika Barber5That said…I wish I were fancy enough to be poached by a foreign country right about now! 😭
Angelo Iulianella5The misplaced fascination of focusing on so-called “stars” in science, who disproportionately absorb the attention and funding, is a distraction from most scientists chipping away at discoveries in small labs, collectivity making the biggest impact.
Jason Rasgon39I was recently approached for a recruitment opp in Canada. The research $ was less than the grants I currently have (that I could not transfer) & top of the salary scale significantly less than I make, in a city 2.5X my current cost of living. Non-starter unless the gestapo were kicking my door down
Alex Merz 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇺🇦12This is all correct and it underscores a critical point: no one is coming to save the US, or science in the US. It is up to us.
Ravi Menon6The belief that a few dozen smart academics can change the fate of a nation that relies on resource extraction and a weak dollar for sales may be the most uninformed economic policy since the Avro Arrow was cancelled and we decided to buy everything high tech from the US.
Drug Monkey5He has a very good point.
Dr Mel T3I fear the stats are correct here. Loads of Western Democracies (Looking at you, Australia!) spend FUCK ALL of their GDP on Research. Do have to adopt (formerly) US tech to keep up! Finland might be actually punching above its weight but has lost ground since the Nokia Brick dumb phone?
Demon King of the New Platform2I mean, there was famously another reason that STEM advocates don’t want to discuss…
this is what the U.S. did to Germany in the 1930s. gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/w...
Andrew Dessler12I wrote about this brain drain on my substack last year: www.theclimatebrink.com/p/a-thank-yo...
David King6It's really too bad Canada is restricting international students at the same time. They could improve their university finances by welcoming those the US won't, but they aren't doing that.
