- Meta’s Yann LeCun warned there could be an exodus of US-based scientists due to funding cuts.
- The Trump administration wants to slash NIH funding, causing concern in the scientific community.
- LeCun said Europe should be recruiting them by offering more favorable research conditions.
The United States could soon see an exodus of tech talent, according to Meta’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun.
“The US seems set on destroying its public research funding system. Many US-based scientists are looking for a Plan B,” LeCun wrote in a post on LinkedIn on Saturday.
The Trump administration has issued several executive orders to reduce funding, sparking concern among the US-based scientific community.
It announced drastic cuts to the National Institutes of Health that would effectively end billions in federal funding for biomedical research. A judge on Friday extended a temporary block on the cuts as lawsuits filed by states and universities who say the cuts are illegal make their way through the court system.
“A sane government would never do this,” former Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier said of the funding cuts in a post on X.
Elon Musk’s cost-cutting DOGE squad has also been deployed to federal agencies, including the NIH, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and NASA.
The executive order that Trump signed against diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates has also caused concern that it could threaten scientific research at universities.
“At least one university is telling its researchers to refrain from terms like “biodiversity” to steer clear of detection by AI-based grant review systems, ” Scientific American reported.
LeCun — who earned his bachelor’s and Ph.D. in France — said the changes in the United States should be a wake-up call for European institutions and companies.
“You may have an opportunity to attract some of the best scientists in the world,” he wrote.
He shared seven things he believes talented researchers want to see at any university, company, or public research agency they’re joining:
- Access to top students and junior collaborators.
- Access to research funding with little administrative overhead.
- Good compensation (comparable with top universities in the US, Switzerland, Canada).
- Freedom to do research on what they think is most promising.
- Access to research facilities (e.g. computing infrastructure, etc).
- Ability to collaborate/consult with industry and startups.
- Moderate teaching and administrative duties.
His message to Europe: “To attract the best scientific and technological talents, make science and technology research professions attractive.”
