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Canada is to spend C$1.7bn (US$1.2bn) to attract up to 1,000 leading international and expatriate researchers, in a plan to strengthen its universities and attract US talent as some American academics seek jobs abroad because of pressure from Donald Trump’s administration.
The new Canada Global Impact+ Research Talent Initiative will invest C$1bn to support the recruitment of top researchers over the next 12 years, with $400mn earmarked for research infrastructure. Some $134mn will be allocated for top international doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers to relocate to Canada, with another $120mn for early-career researchers.
Mélanie Joly, Canada’s industry minister, said: “As other countries constrain academic freedoms and undermine cutting-edge research, Canada is investing in — and doubling down on — science . . . by attracting the top minds from around the world to work alongside exceptional Canadian researchers.”
The Trump administration’s attempt to clamp down on academic freedom, along with the freezing and cancellation of federal research funding this year has caused US universities to slash costs and reduce the number of postdoctoral students they hire. Several surveys have shown a significant number of researchers would consider moving elsewhere to pursue their careers.
Tuesday’s announcement marks a significant increase in Canada’s investment in science. It is substantially larger than similar initiatives to attract US researchers unveiled in recent months by the EU and countries including France, the UK and Sweden.
Alan Bernstein, president emeritus of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, who urged Prime Minister Mark Carney to launch the programme, said: “This is not just about being opportunistic given the situation in the US. It’s about building a stronger Canada based on science and innovation. We need to diversify what we sell, not just who we sell to.”
Bernstein said a number of Canadian universities were “lining up names” of foreign academics they hoped to recruit. He said funding had been earmarked to cover the high costs of equipment for science, medical and engineering research, and he expected the extra government money to trigger matching philanthropic and corporate support.
Toronto’s United Health Network, a large hospitals and research network, in April launched a campaign to recruit 100 researchers globally.
Only a small number of high-profile US-based academics have been publicly identified as emigrating to Canada. They include three Yale professors who moved to the University of Toronto: Jason Stanley, Marci Shore and Timothy Snyder.
The Nobel Prize-winning economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee recently announced they were leaving Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the University of Zurich, while the Austrian Academy of Sciences claims to have recruited 25 “top researchers” from the US this year.
Snyder told the Financial Times he did not flee the Trump administration or leave Yale because of politics, but chose Canada as part of a “positive midlife crisis” to do things he could not do in the US.
“I can teach far more students here, right? I can reach a much larger public directly here. And like, that’s an attraction,” he said.
