Deonandan: Canada should act quickly to attract U.S. scientists fleeing Trump

Demonstrators protest funding cuts outside of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, on March 8, 2025. Photo by MICHAEL MATHES /AFP via Getty ImagesArticle content

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.

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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.

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These decisions have created tension, anxiety and sometimes panic among many American researchers. Unsurprisingly, many American scientists are now looking to leave the United States. 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.

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This is a rare opportunity for Canada — and Ottawa — 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.

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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 a year of research funding for seven years. Tier 2 is meant to identify emerging leaders, granting them $100,000 a year.

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A workable path would be to create a special temporary branch of the Tier 1 program specifically to acquire top U.S. talent fleeing the Trump regime. But such a new tier would have to undergo some significant administrative changes.

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Presently, universities must apply to be given Canada Research Chair slots. Then they may recruit individuals to fill those slots, depending on their particular subject area needs. The number of slots they receive is dependent upon how well their professors have historically performed in competing for federal grants.

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This slow process 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 U.S. 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.