“We used to be known as the land of the free and the home of the brave; and now we’re the land of the fearful and home of the hateful,” says Jim Noone, who works at a research university in the United States.
Like many working in American academia, Jim and his wife Paula are considering a move to Ireland, Europe or Canada.
“We’re definitely talking about it. There’s a war on academia and a war on formal education in the US. At work, we’ve spoken about what to do when ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] comes knocking on the door looking for foreign academics and students. We have to be prepared.”
Donald Trump‘s regime has threatened dozens of colleges and universities, mainly Ivy League institutions, and stripped billions of dollars in research grants from educational institutions that refuse to bend to his will. The US government wants to dictate what subjects and topics are taught and has demanded oversight of entire institutions, including hiring decisions and disciplinary policies.
Harvard University has pushed back and is suing the US government to retain its $2.2 billion in funding and tax-free status.
Harvard president Alan Garber has said: “Indiscriminately slashing medical, scientific, and technological research undermines the nation’s ability to save American lives, foster American success and maintain America‘s position as a global leader in innovation.”
In addition to threatening public health, academics said there would be a major impact on environmental capabilities such as the prediction and management of natural disasters, the effect of pollution, the study of global warming and the collection of important health and climate data.
The humanities are particularly threatened, as any research on gender, race, migration, and the status of women has been widely challenged, while some historians say that the administration has accused them of rewriting history.
‘Disappeared’
The US administration has also targeted foreign university students and academics who speak out or write about issues that are at odds with their position or for not adhering to minor immigration technicalities.
Some, such as heralded Russian-born cancer diagnostics researcher Kseniia Petrova, have been snatched from airports – others from their campuses or their homes – by ICE agents and “disappeared” to prisons outside the state without due process.
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America‘s higher-level educational and research centres were once the envy of the world. Critics say the US administration’s actions, which closely follow the Project 2025 plan created by the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation, could destroy the nation’s reputation and educational future as academics flee abroad.
Scientific journal Nature surveyed 1,600 scientists recently, and 75 per cent said they were considering relocating to Europe or Canada. A tracking database from Inside Higher Ed shows that, as of April 24th, more than 280 colleges and universities have identified 1,800-plus international students and recent graduates who have had their legal status changed or visas revoked by the US State Department.
Irish mathematician and astrophysicist at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Prof Luke Drury, said the tragedy for the US was that “a research system is not something that you can just turn off and then on again”.
“It is a complex human ecosystem depending on specialised infrastructures, laboratories, libraries, databases, networks of personal connections, reliable funding and a constant intake of new blood as students progress through the system. If this research ecosystem is disrupted, it takes a long time to re-establish it,” said Drury.
International collaboration is an important feature of the academic and scientific communities, yet American scholarships, such as the Fulbright, have been cancelled or repurposed.
‘Deadening impact’
Recently, the US administration announced some of the ideas it is considering to help increase marriage and birth rates in the US, another objective of Project 2025.
One proposal is to reserve 30 per cent of Fulbright scholarships for applicants who are married and have children. The programme usually provides an individual with three to 12 months of intensive teaching and/or research experience in another country.
American Cara Augustenborg, assistant professor in environmental policy at UCD and a Fulbright scholar, said: “If the intention is to support US citizens to have more children, the US government would be far more effective by taking a page out of Scandinavia‘s book and offering generous parental leave, free/subsidised childcare, and free/low cost education instead of tinkering with a scholarship programme historically aimed at college students keen for adventure and knowledge rather than marriage and babies.”
The deadening impact of America‘s anti-academic policies is already being felt in Ireland, she said. Dr Augustenborg said US students were increasingly interested in receiving an environmental education overseas.
American student applications for UCD‘s environmental policy programme are up 70 per cent compared with last year and up 150 per cent overall, if applications from all 31 countries were included, she said.
“People who would have gone to the US for a master’s degree are now looking at Ireland as an English-speaking country instead. American students graduating this year are also trying to figure out how they can stay in Ireland for a few more years,” she said.
“Ireland could be one of the greatest beneficiaries from the US brain drain, as foreign languages are not taught very well in the US. There also aren’t that many countries in the sciences doing their work through English. You can work in Denmark in the English language, but to stay and get citizenship, you have to become fluent in Danish,” she said.
American Kevin Wozniak, lecturer and director of the research centre for criminology at Maynooth University, moved to Ireland two years ago with his husband, Aaron Eaton.
More of his American academic colleagues are now scrambling to find jobs here or elsewhere in Europe.
“Even tenured professors are applying for jobs two grades beneath their current status so they don’t have to be a part of where America is moving at the moment,” he said.
Wozniak and Eaton made the move before the US presidential election last November.
“Personally, I was getting increasingly nervous in America as a gay man,” Wozniak said.
Once Trump was elected, this anxiety only increased.
“The historical record is very clear about what happens: authoritarians come for the academics,” he said.
‘Refugee scientists’
But if American scholars want to leave, is there room for “academic refugees” in Europe?
On Monday, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced the European Commission’s Choose Europe for Science initiative, a €500 million program from 2025 to 2027 to attract foreign researchers in an attempt to profile from Trump’s federal funding cuts and conflicts with US universities.
French president Emmanuel Macron also committed another €100 million from the France 2030 programme to support researchers and make Europe a safe haven for science.
“We call on researchers worldwide to unite and join us … If you love freedom, come and help us stay free,” Macron said at the Sorbonne University in Paris, standing alongside the European Commission president.
France, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands all recently launched schemes targeting US scientists and researchers. Aix-Marseille University in France said its “Safe Place for Science” scheme received a flood of applications after announcing in March it would open its doors to US scientists threatened by cuts.
Of 298 applications, for only 20 available posts, 135 of the applicants were US citizens; 45 were dual citizens. The applicants were from a variety of US institutions, including Johns Hopkins, Nasa, Yale, Stanford, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania.
The French government is also exploring the creation of a new status of “refugee scientist” so more US researchers could be welcomed in France and Europe.
Minister for Higher Education James Lawless has said Ireland has been planning to launch a new “global talent recruitment initiative” this summer aimed at attracting established research leaders and rising stars from abroad.
The call will focus on strategic areas critical to Ireland‘s future economy, including life sciences, digital and artificial intelligence, sustainability, healthcare, semiconductors and food systems.
“Ireland will lead with our people. We will act swiftly to attract world-class researchers to Ireland, and to deliver the skills and talent industry needs to adapt and thrive,” he said.
Prof Drury said we could not afford to ignore the humanities, which included history, literature, philosophy, languages, art, music, and cultural studies, which were the worst affected. Grants from the US National Endowment for the Humanities have been cancelled and redirected to “patriotic programming”, the New York Times has reported.
“If we are offering refuge, then we have a moral duty to do something, and this applies to the humanities as well as the sciences,” Prof Drury said.
Europe does not need to set up new systems to welcome American academics. Prof Drury said the European Research Council’s funding scheme supported international researchers’ work in Europe, and the sole criterion for selection was the excellence of the proposed research.
“You get dramatic breakthroughs by funding curiosity,” he said.
Prof Drury suggested the Irish government should significantly increase the funding allocated to the research council and to Research Ireland.
“If we stick to our values of academic freedom, democracy and resist this authoritarian trend, then the future is actually quite bright for Europe … but we must be vigilant,” he said.
This article was originally published in The Irish Times on 7th May 2025 and can be accessed here.