America’s research system is sending a market signal. Since 2025, the Trump administration has frozen or terminated 8,007 grants across the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, according to data from Grant Witness. Fewer than two-thirds of those grants, or 5,187, have been restored.
The effect is showing up in people as well as budgets. The federal government lost more than 10,000 STEM PhDs in 2025 through firings, retirements and resignations, according to analysis of Office of Personnel Management data. The rate of Physics PhD graduates leaving the U.S. hit its highest level in 30 years in 2025, according to the American Institute of Physics. The departure rate for non-U.S. citizens doubled from the previous year.
That has created an opening overseas. In May 2025, the EU launched 'Choose Europe for Science,' a €500 million funding package of grants and relocation support. Ursula von der Leyen said the aim was to make Europe 'a magnet for researchers.' European institutions are already recruiting against the U.S. The European Research Council’s senior-researcher applications from the U.S. nearly quintupled in a year, from 23 to 114, according to analysis by Nature. Its starting grant drew 169 applications from U.S.-based researchers this year, up from 116 in 2025.
Individual scientists are making the same calculation. Alex Worsham, a former U.S. military IT and cybersecurity specialist who worked to protect the Library of Congress and the Transportation Security Administration, moved to Norway to study at the University of Oslo. He said federal funding cuts and 'restrictive' U.S. government oversight drove the move. Marc van Essen, who spent 12 years at the University of South Carolina, returned to Europe to join France’s Emlyon Business School. He said that after the 2024 election he grew concerned about pressures on international engagement, academic freedom and open dialogue in U.S. higher education.
Europe is not just buying prestige. It is buying the pipeline that feeds productivity and enterprise value. Aix-Marseille University welcomed its first cohort of American academics through its 'Safe Place for Science' program after 298 applied from institutions including Berkeley, NASA and Stanford. The Max Planck Society in Germany has opened a recruitment track specifically for U.S. researchers, and the Tulip Fund in the Netherlands picked 34 researchers in its first round, 29 of them from or working in the U.S.
The commercial stakes are real. Many startups are spun out of academic institutions and research labs. Dealroom puts the combined enterprise value of European spinouts at $473bn. Howard Yu of IMD Business School says European markets and international hubs have an 'opportunity to capitalize' by keeping environments open and welcoming. He warns that shutting out international talent 'directly threatens technological and corporate supremacy.'
More than a quarter, 28%, of American STEM professionals would consider moving abroad if they left their job in the next year, according to SThree. The share rises to 49% among those in their 20s, and 16% are already relocating. Life sciences shows the strongest pull, with 14% already moving or planning to.
The market has already voted. When public funding gets tighter and oversight gets heavier, capital does not stay sentimental. It follows the rules, the labs and the talent. Europe now sees a chance to turn Washington’s uncertainty into its own advantage, and private enterprise will be the first to notice if that bet works.
