An unused research lab after USAID funding was cut to the labs occupants at the University of California, Davis, in Davis, Calif., on March 6.Fred Greaves/Reuters
In the early days of the second Trump administration, Frédéric Bouchard, dean of arts and sciences at University of Montreal, told his faculty’s two dozen department chairs to keep an eye out for talented researchers in the United States who might be looking for a change of scenery.
If they knew of anyone unsettled by funding cuts and political moves in the U.S., particularly if that person had a connection to Canada, Prof. Bouchard wanted to be notified immediately.
He has already had calls from colleagues, he said.
“Any time the market for talent is rattled it makes our jobs easier recruiting the best that are out there,” Prof. Bouchard said. “It’s still early. Right now we are just discussing with various potential people, seeing whether they’re interested or not.”
Prof. Bouchard said private donors have even expressed an interest in supporting recruitment.
“Without me asking them they told me that if we found somebody, and we needed additional resources to bring them to Canada, that I should give them a call,” Prof. Bouchard said.
At the University of Toronto, department of immunology chair Jen Gommerman said she has already had researchers in the U.S. contact her about opportunities in Canada. Many are feeling demoralized, she said.
“It’s a fearful time for everyone in academia,” Prof. Gommerman said. “There’s uncertainty. There’s this feeling of loss.”
In the first weeks of the Trump administration, a series of executive orders and policy decisions has destabilized research agencies and universities. The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have all been targeted for cuts, which the White House has said are aimed at saving money and improving efficiency.
The NIH, one of the most important medical-research funding agencies in the world, with a budget of US$47-billion, has also been ordered to cap at 15 per cent the amount of money that goes to individual universities for indirect costs. That funding pays for much of the research infrastructure on U.S. campuses, and the cap could reduce overall funding by as much as US$4-billion, according to one estimate.
The administration has also taken aim at research projects that touch on issues of diversity and race as well as climate and the environment.
Gabriel Miller, president of Universities Canada, said he has been speaking with university leaders about recruitment. He said there’s considerable interest from scholars and graduate students in the U.S. and those elsewhere in the world who would have gone to the U.S. but are now looking at alternatives.
“That’s going to be an increasing part of our conversations with the federal government: How Canada can use its tools to take advantage of that opportunity and strengthen our research network and our economy at a time when it’s going to need all the strengthening it can get,” Mr. Miller said.
But recruiting faculty is not done easily or quickly. Senior academics with established labs and careers don’t tend to pick up and move.
Prof. Gommerman said she has been speaking with other department chairs at U of T about raising funds to bring in a cohort of postdoctoral researchers, which could be done quickly and for a fixed term. It would provide an infusion of talent that could make a tremendous impact on Canadian science, she said.
“Our grants are too small to really do this so I think we’re going to have to think outside the box,” Prof. Gommerman said. “If a donor wanted to bring 50 talented postdocs into Toronto as a cohort and see them through the next three years of training, that would cost roughly $15-million.”
Prof. Bouchard said it makes sense to look at promising researchers who don’t yet have tenure and are more mobile.
He also said it’s much easier to recruit people with an existing connection to Canada, perhaps from having studied here or through family links. Ultimately, though, academics think of location decisions as decades-long investments, he said.
“Talent will go where they feel supported,” he said.
Prof. Bouchard chaired an advisory panel on the federal research support system in 2023 that spurred a major spending plan announced by Ottawa last year. That included an additional $1.8-billion in funding over five years for federal granting agencies.
There was a collective sense during that process that Canada needs to step up to improve its standing in the world of research, he said.
“It’s clear that talent and innovation are a strategic asset right now,” Prof. Bouchard said.
Although there may be an opportunity to recruit talent, many Canadian universities have been looking to save rather than spend recently as the decline of the international student program and other revenue pressures have cut into institutional budgets.
Prof. Bouchard said he has often been in negotiations to hire a top researcher only to be outbid by a U.S. institution with greater spending power. That type of recruitment may take on a new dynamic now, he said.
The federally funded Canada Excellence Research Chair program, which opens in 2026, is an initiative designed to attract leading scientists to Canadian universities. It offers grants of $1-million a year or $500,000 a year for up to eight years, a funding source that could be used to lure top scholars north.
Prof. Bouchard said his impression is that with events in the U.S. moving quickly, many senior American researchers are still in wait-and-see mode.
“I would say they’re not yet ready to walk out the door, but they’re putting their shoes on,” he said.