Europe Makes a Pitch to Attract Scientists Shunned by the U.S.
The continent’s leaders are hoping to benefit as the Trump administration cuts support for research and threatens universities such as Harvard and Columbia with the freezing of federal funds.
Europe grabs an opportunity
Here is an example:
Since 2014, UW Medicine’s Institute for Protein Design has spun off 10 startups, and the institute’s director, University of Washington biochemist David Baker, has co-founded 21 tech companies. After Baker won the Nobel Prize in October, interest spiked from graduate students and postdoctoral researchers eager to join IPD in pursuit of academic or entrepreneurial ventures.
The timing was perfect. The artificial intelligence used to create previously nonexistent proteins with the potential to provide new cancer treatments, tackle plastic waste, deliver life-saving vaccines, capture carbon and other essential tasks has hit its stride.
Then everything came to a screeching halt.
Due to Trump administration efforts to slash research budgets and threats to state funding, UW Medicine in February instituted a temporary hiring freeze for non-clinical roles, followed by a university-wide freeze on non-essential positions in March.
That means UW academic departments will likely accept fewer graduate students, and labs — Baker’s included — are unable to hire postdocs unless they successfully lobby leadership for exemptions. That means fewer highly educated researchers will get the chance to delve into these new technologies, potentially curbing the startups spinning out of IPD.
