Canada Should Act Now to Attract US Scientists Fleeing the Trump Regime
A slightly different version of this article was published in The Ottawa Citizen.
Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has eliminated thousands of positions in major public health and science agencies, halted funding for biomedical research, reduced support for research-related overhead expenses, and ended grants that do not align with its priorities.
We daily hear stories of grant proposals being denied if they include the words “mRNA” or “transgenic”, or otherwise trigger the disdain of the ideologues currently occupying the White House.
These decisions have created tension, anxiety, and sometimes panic among many US researchers. Unsurprisingly, many American scientists are now looking to leave the USA. Some are seeking appointments in overseas universities that have their own funding struggles, and who only rarely have open positions to advertise. Others are looking to industry; but few can make that leap easily.
This is a rare opportunity for Canada to snatch the best and brightest of American scientific talent, and to position this nation as a world leader in some of the most promising and profitable fields in the history of science. We should act quickly to do so.
The Canada Research Chair (CRC) program was created in 2000 to foster innovation among our scholars. Funded to the tune of $311 million annually, it consists of two levels. Tier 1 is meant to attract and retain the world’s best professors, giving them $200,000/year of research funding for 7 years. Tier 2 is meant to identify emerging leaders, granting them $100,000/year.
A workable path is to create a special temporary branch of the Tier 1 program specifically to acquire top US talent fleeing the Trump regime. But such a new tier would have to undergo some significant administrative changes.
Presently, universities must apply to be given CRC slots. Then they may recruit individuals to fill those slots, depending on their particular subject area needs. And the number of slots they receive is dependent upon how well their professors have historically performed in competing for federal grants.
This is a slow process that does not align with the rapid timeline of the dismantling of the American research funding regime. To expedite matters, it would be more useful for the CRC program to directly recruit from US universities, targeting subject areas assumed to be best positioned to build Canadian prosperity in the long term. Those areas include, but are not limited to: AI and quantum computing, clean energy, vaccine science, and cyber security.
Such an endeavour is not without its challenges. Equity is one such challenge, as we must decide how best to tackle demographic representation and subject area diversity. It is likely that other places, like Europe and China, are also contemplating recruitment strategies. So the clock is ticking.
Another tool at our disposal is the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF), which is meant to help our universities strengthen their research capacity and become global leaders in areas of strategic importance. But the CFREF funds institutions, not individuals. It’s possible to use CFREF to create enticing environments to lure top American talent. But it can be best used in concert with a CRC expansion to most effectively capitalize on this historic opportunity.
Consider the opportunities. AI alone is projected to have a global market size of $827 billion, and to contribute more than $15 trillion to the global economy, by 2030. Combined mRNA vaccines and therapeutics are projected to be worth $68 billion by the same time. Canadian research can be central to the development of new cancer therapies, as well as vaccines against dementia and heart disease, worth billions of dollars and improving millions of lives.
What would all this cost? To attract and secure the best talent, we would probably have to at least double the CRC budget. That means an additional $300 million of taxpayer dollars. That’s not cheap. But given the enormous potential for long term prosperity, I think it’s worth it.
