Austria hails 'brain gain' in luring 25 academics away from US after cuts

https://www.reuters.com/world/austria-hails-brain-gain-luring-25-academics-away-us-after-cuts-2025-09-25/

164•c420•4mo ago

Comments

constantcrying•4mo ago

How is 25 American takings jobs in Austria newsworthy?

cjbgkagh•4mo ago

Not an academic so there could be some context I don’t know but upon reading it it’s even worse, grants for 2 years, looks more like a secondment than a coup.

hluska•4mo ago

According to primary sources, the program is actually for four years. The press release stated 48 months but that got printed in Reuters as two years.

cjbgkagh•4mo ago

That’ll definitely make it harder to go back which does make it more meaningful.

htk•4mo ago

Because it's a reason to bash Trump.

Trump gives plenty of reasons to be bashed, but this news article seems like a stretch.

sherr•4mo ago

Taking a less cynical view, it's just successful Austrian PR.

htk•4mo ago

It's right in the first paragraph:

"Austria has lured what it calls 25 "top researchers" away from U.S. institutions including Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton with grants set up in response to the Trump administration's funding cuts targeting universities."

throwacct•4mo ago

This article is missing key info. Which research areas are we talking about?

amanaplanacanal•4mo ago

> Recipients of the grants of 500,000 euros ($587,000) each over two years range from post-doctoral researchers to professors and work in fields such as physics, chemistry and life sciences, the Austrian Academy of Sciences said in a statement on Thursday.

0cf8612b2e1e•4mo ago

Need to start somewhere. In 2024 how many researchers did the same?

devin•4mo ago

On its own it isn't, but I suspect if all of these were reported you might think it quite significant.

constantcrying•4mo ago

Why do they not make an actual story out of this, do some research and publish whether there was some unusually high outflow of academics over the last two years?

25 people can not be an indication of anything. Academics especially are moving around often and take up work in different countries.

foxglacier•4mo ago

Either it's too hard or it would show a nothing-burger. Anecdotes are better for spreading misinformation when you're constrained by being factual.

hluska•4mo ago

Can you point out the misinformation?

foxglacier•4mo ago

Calling it a "brain drain" when it's only 25 people. You can probably find 25 Austrian academics going to America and write the same brain drain article about that at the same time.

hluska•4mo ago

This Reuters article is based on a press release that was issued earlier today. The type of research you’re proposing would take weeks to be done, written and edited.

ricardobeat•4mo ago

These are researchers from Harvard, Princeton, and MIT. Sometimes there are only a handful of people worldwide in a particular field doing top level research.

constantcrying•4mo ago

And sometimes there are tens of thousands or these fields are tiny for a reason.

add-sub-mul-div•4mo ago

A nation doing a 180 from its longstanding strategy of gaining talent to pushing away talent is newsworthy. But it's easy to overlook without reporting on tangible examples.

constantcrying•4mo ago

Academics move around countries all the time for many reasons. It is ridiculous to assume that 25 people moving to different work places is any indication of a "shift in strategy".

amanaplanacanal•4mo ago

It's an example of the result of the shift in strategy. The shift in strategy has been widely reported elsewhere, and we are already well aware of it.

x0x0•4mo ago

Not many people walk away from Harvard, MIT, Princeton, etc. If you had tenure there (a big if, since the article is unclear), or even were tenure track, that was viewed as one of the most prestigious and desirable jobs in the world.

25 people leaving is a sea change.

constantcrying•4mo ago

>25 people leaving is a sea change.

25 Academics leaving is not "sea change".

>If you had tenure there (a big if, since the article is unclear), or even were tenure track, that was viewed as one of the most prestigious and desirable jobs in the world.

Some very major ifs there.

ricardobeat•4mo ago

For numbers, it's nearly 1% of all post-docs (~3400) in those three universities, leaving at once, to a single destination. You can do the math. It's a fact that the USA used to attract this talent, not export it.

constantcrying•4mo ago

Academics have always been leaving the US, just like Academics have always been coming to the US. A turnover in staff is normal, it has happened everywhere, always.

>It's a fact that the USA used to attract this talent, not export it.

And where is the evidence that it does not? People leaving is normal. Post-docs leave institution's all the time.

One additional thought. If you think this is about a right wing political shift in the US, why would these researcher go to one of the strongholds of the far right in Europe?

ricardobeat•4mo ago

Articles like this are the evidence. The news is not the specific number, but the growing trend [1] of academics looking to leave the US due to turmoil, cancelled grants, visas and the general political climate.

There are at least a half dozen other EU countries with right wing governments. Austria’s current chancellor is centre-right, and thank god most “far right” parties in Europe are still kilometers away from their US counterparts, and would not dare interfere in academia in any way similar to Trump’s doings.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00938-y

araes•4mo ago

Because it gets a lot of response, there's a lot of traction, many with positive sentiment, support, and "take me with you" equivalents.

Because its a sign significant numbers of people, institutions, disciplines, and demographics are thinking that way. In stock market terminology it would be a signal to investors.

Thread on Reddit 1mo ago about biotechnologist Wali Malik leaving his lab in Boston developing mass testing of active ingredients for pharmaceuticals got a decent amount of visibility. Also mentions the APART-USA grants. https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1mzlk04/us_rese...

constantcrying•4mo ago

>Because its a sign significant numbers of people, institutions, disciplines, and demographics are thinking that way. In stock market terminology it would be a signal to investors.

How is something incredibly common a signal for anything? Academics move to other countries all the time.

vor_•4mo ago

That's a very reductionist way to describe it. According to the article, these are key researchers from some of America's most prestigious universities.

mensetmanusman•4mo ago

It’s narrative building by the media owners. We get to see how they fight rhetorically through headlines.

bigyabai•4mo ago

But when it's one guy being hired by Meta, it's a landmark in private enterprise and irresistible reporting. Hmm...

unixhero•4mo ago

Austria is a really wonderful place to live as well. Food, bakery traditions, beer traditions, world class skiing.

jancsika•4mo ago

They could make it an even 26 by the end of the night if they play their cards right.

bats eyelashes, casually implements b-tree

hluska•4mo ago

I think you can safely hold off on the eyelash batting for a few months. There were only 25 fellowships available, applications opened on July 4th and all have been awarded. This page on the program will tell you more:

https://stipendien.oeaw.ac.at/en/fellowships/apart-usa

arunbahl•4mo ago

As a startup that chose to locate in Canada, we’ve already had a dozen amazing candidates currently in the US reach out and apply for roles since we shared our thinking earlier this week [0].

The feeling of ambient immigration hostility in the US (even beyond any one specific policy) is palpable.

0: https://aloe.inc/blog/the-best-talent-in-the-world

klipt•4mo ago

Canada seems to be entering its own anti immigrant phase though, especially against South Asian immigrants

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/hate-toward-south-asia...

locallost•4mo ago

I was hoping the EU can capitalize on this, but remain skeptical as the EU politicians have noticed what kind of rhetoric is successful and are starting to bang the same drum louder and louder. Being anti immigration one of the main ideas. We'll see. My bet is China will be the big winner.

mr90210•4mo ago

This has been my observation living in the EU.

Two regions that have been capitalising from skilled programmers and that hardly anyone talks about are the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

karmakurtisaani•4mo ago

They are in an excellent position to capitalize on the situation: deep pockets and a shady reputation that has kept competition low, so they should have plenty of open position.

alecco•4mo ago

Recently the EU allocated billions to fund tech startups. But if you read the bare minimum demands, you'll see how suspicious it is. Like, you have to have a female co-founder, when everybody in the trade knows it's very hard to find a trustworthy co-founder of any kind.

I haven't heard of anybody getting these funds. I suspect the recipients were pre-selected before the announcement and the criteria was tailored to match them. And I also suspect, in some roundabout way, part of the money will end up in political campaigns or something.

bee_rider•4mo ago

How would you hear of somebody getting these funds? I don’t personally know anybody who’s gotten massive VC funding in the US either, but I think it does happen.

I don’t see any reason to be skeptical of the requirement to find a female co-founder, I mean it is clearly a program to promote equality, but that is an uncontroversial goal in some places.

klipt•4mo ago

Suspicious that the EU claims to "promote gender equality" while turning a blind eye to the male only conscription perpetrated by EU members Austria, Finland, etc

zaik•4mo ago

Should the EU have the right to reject national election results if the results show no gender equality?

bee_rider•4mo ago

It is a lot easier to come up with new rules for a project that requires proactively making investments (where it is assumed they will be selective anyway), than it is to convince a country to change their military policy.

klipt•4mo ago

> convince a country to change their military policy

Maybe they can't force them but the EU has mechanisms to punish illiberal behavior like the fines they are charging Hungary.

They should start fining countries that do make only drafts, at least to start a conversation about it.

em-bee•4mo ago

it's very hard to find a trustworthy co-founder of any kind

that may be so, but did you check if the funding is limited to teams with at least two or more people? some funds do not allow single founders at all for whatever reason.

jacquesm•4mo ago

> My bet is China will be the big winner.

Because China is so much more immigration and foreigner friendly?

netsharc•4mo ago

How about the opposite: the "great again" USA is very unwelcoming, that Chinese citizens who were attracted to the freedoms it once offered (a different flavour of freedom compared to the one Trump is currently offering) might now think "Sheesh, maybe let's not try to migrate to the USA and start a life there!".

locallost•4mo ago

I don't know, personally never went there. But it doesn't seem to be throwing out babies with the bath water, as currently the case in the US. What their immigration policies are in general I don't know, but they are a knowledge hungry worldpower, and we are talking about scientists here. And as for the EU, my concern remains, there are way too many Trump copycats, and it's difficult to trust it will not go down the same road. The problems and root causes are similar. If I didn't have kids I would've left Germany for sure by now.

jacquesm•4mo ago

> And as for the EU, my concern remains, there are way too many Trump copycats

Fully agreed on that one.

Herring•4mo ago

China can turn on a dime. And they smell blood.

https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-entry-exit-k-visa...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC8f1qs3TGs

Give it 5-10 years and the situation could look very different. If they decide to pour tons of money into it, they could dominate like with trains or solar.

jacquesm•4mo ago

I would never invest time, money or my life into a country without a functioning legal system. In a country where the likes of Jack Ma are not safe nobody is safe.

Herring•4mo ago

71% of H1Bs are Indian. They might feel differently, especially after looking at ICE.

Personally I prefer looking at the average case: http://data.worldhappiness.report/chart

China still has lots of ground to make up, but they’re headed in the right direction. Needless to say, the US isn’t.

jacquesm•4mo ago

Looking at the average case is a massive logical fallacy. It isn't the average case that will likely determine the outcome of your case, because as an immigrant you are not average.

Herring•4mo ago

They’re quite correlated….

It’s hard for a country to take very good care of its citizens (healthcare, free education, social security, economic opportunity, work-life balance, access to nature) at the Finland level then turn around and persecute immigrants. It just doesn’t happen. It takes a lot of goodwill and trust (in citizens, politics, institutions) to get all that to work. Then clearly they’re also trying to attract immigrants, they can’t turn around and start locking them up.

Look at the history of Europe (colonialism), what usually happens is they practice and fine-tune atrocities outside then import them. Bush and Iraq as a prelude to Trump.

mensetmanusman•4mo ago

China is headed in the wrong direction. Xi has screwed the pooch.

thisisit•4mo ago

You do realise Chinese form a large immigrant population in the US, right?

And as much as I dislike saying this - Chinese government doesn’t want you talking about politics. Otherwise you should be mostly fine.

While US government is going beyond politics. Pushing stuff like that autism and Tylenol connection on correlation study. That is going beyond politics and impacting academic and scientific analysis.

jacquesm•4mo ago

> You do realise Chinese form a large immigrant population in the US, right?

Did I say anything that made you think otherwise, right?

> And as much as I dislike saying this - Chinese government doesn’t want you talking about politics. Otherwise you should be mostly fine.

Ahhh too bad then, because one of the things that I really like about the societies that I'd bet my life/money/health/other resources on is that I want to be able to talk about politics. Otherwise, what's the point, all you are doing is lining some dictator's pocket.

> While US government is going beyond politics. Pushing stuff like that autism and Tylenol connection on correlation study. That is going beyond politics and impacting academic and scientific analysis.

Yes, the US is also on a bad path. But so is China. And they too push plenty of bullshit. How is that Tianmen Square investigation coming along?

mensetmanusman•4mo ago

CNN was reporting on the dangers of Tylenol during pregnancy less than 10 years ago.

thisisit•4mo ago

> Did I say anything that made you think otherwise, right?

Yes this line made you seem ignorant.

>> Because China is so much more immigration and foreigner friendly?

The brain drain to China will not be based on immigrants or foreigners rather Chinese going back. Capisce?

And you seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing.

> Yes, the US is also on a bad path. But so is China. And they too push plenty of bullshit. How is that Tianmen Square investigation coming along?

Tiananmen Square happened in 1989. China has been on the "bad path" for years. No one is denying that. But that is not the same parallel as US government pushing hack medicines and correlation studies like autism and Tylenol. Find me an example of China doing that instead of going for the lowest denominator of "Tiananmen Square, see gotcha".

maxglute•4mo ago

Because PRC is returning sea turtle / talented diasphora friendly and there's a fuckload of talented PRC born diasphora abroad who frankly has to self censor under mccarthy free speech anyways.

t-3•4mo ago

China can benefit in the short-term if talent moves there, but it's very difficult to gain citizenship in China if you're not ethnically Chinese. That probably won't matter for people just moving for work, but those looking for a better life for their children or a home would likely consider it a blocker.

klipt•4mo ago

There are millions of overseas Chinese descendants who already speak Chinese and are wholly or partly ethnically Chinese. That would be an easy pool to draw from first.

For example Terence Tao speaks Cantonese.

mensetmanusman•4mo ago

lol, China is the most anti immigrant which is why their immigration levels are so low.

m-hodges•4mo ago

I’m currently reading a biography of Kurt Gödel¹ and the first 60 pages are about Austria’s authoritarian-driven brain drain almost 100 years ago.

¹ https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Edge-Reason-Life-G%C3%B6del/d...

IIAOPSW•4mo ago

Kurt Godel rather famously claimed to have spotted logical contradictions in the US constitution, which of course is not too controversial on its own (and was probably right given who he is), but presenting this argument in response to questions about the constitution that were given as part of his citizenship test was an insane thing to try no matter how good his logic.

Amazingly he still passed.

m-hodges•4mo ago

Einstein talked him out of presenting it. Recent HN conversation on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44812159

charliebwrites•4mo ago

Austria, and Vienna in particular has always held a special place in my heart

Do we know if they have programs like this for high skill tech workers or is it just PhDs at this point?

j7ake•4mo ago

Salary range there is like 30 to 70k euros

gmueckl•4mo ago

The article doesn't go into details whether these academics are full professors or e.g. postdocs. Twenty-five tenured professors would be a big deal because they tend to either bring their workgroups along or rebuild them at the new university. That's where the true impact of such news lies if these are indeed teachers: these groups produce a steady stream of future experts in the form of graduates and PhDs in their respective domains. Given the timelines for careers of students and young academics, the full impact of these moves should start to show in about 5 to 10 years.

the_snooze•4mo ago

Another factor is if they're all from the same (sub)discipline. It doesn't take a lot of established researchers moving to shift a field's center of gravity somewhere else. When you start seeing research conferences that used to be in the US be held elsewhere instead, you'll know that the change has happened.

Yoric•4mo ago

I'm on a researcher mailing-list discussing exactly this at the moment.

For the moment, the main argument for keeping some conferences within the US is the number of researchers (typically PhDs and postdocs) who couldn't attend then re-enter the US.

We'll see how that goes.

threecheese•4mo ago

I follow a few Australian folks on social media, and it was really surprising to see how much of an Asian/Chinese influence there is. Asian flavors, signage, brands, even slang. It’s a departure from American cultural hegemony that I (as an American) just did not expect.

After wrongly thinking for my entire life that Aussies were basically American cowboys plus crocodiles, I now see news like this as just part of a feedback loop of accelerating loss of global influence - or more accurate, transfer of influence. Coca Cola —> Lychee.

tptacek•4mo ago

This is a story about Austria.

b_e_n_t_o_n•4mo ago

Not gonna lie I also read it as Australia....

jawilson2•4mo ago

I think it is the "Austria hails..." The extra ia/ai in there is throwing off our brains. I had to read it a few times before it stuck.

em-bee•4mo ago

don't worry, austrians get that all the time. i always have to point out that i am talking about the one in europe, next to germany, before it clicks with people

rsynnott•4mo ago

Fun fact: there is a thing called an O-Bahn in Australia. Surely I mean Austria?

Surprisingly, no: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway

em-bee•4mo ago

huh, why is that? people don't believe that australia has trains? wait, this isn't even a train but a bus. does o-bahn sound too german?

rsynnott•4mo ago

Yeah, the name. I saw a reference to an Australian system called o-Bahn a while back, thought that it _must_ be a typo for Austria, but, no, it actually is Australian.

summarity•4mo ago

Mozart not Kangaroos

arduanika•4mo ago

Waltzing Johann Strauss, not Matilda

spacechild1•4mo ago

I was just waiting for someone to confuse Austria with Australia :)

guywithahat•4mo ago

I wish it said more about what these researchers did, other than they were the result of cuts to things like trans policies and opposition to Palestine protests. It would be interesting to see if these are semiconductor researchers or gender studies.

tptacek•4mo ago

Even if they were full professors, 25 seems like a literal drop in the bucket. There are 187 R1 universities in the US. Competition for professorships is so intense that a lot of people look at grad school as a sucker's bet. I'm happy for these people and for Austria, but I don't see a real news story here.

Bhilai•4mo ago

drop by drop, thats how a bucket fills.

hollerith•4mo ago

OK, but I want to read news stories about the state of the bucket, not about 25 of the drops.

the_snooze•4mo ago

The thing is that professors and research groups aren't fungible. Each one that moves represents a nontrivial loss in expertise for the US in some field. There are only so many groups doing basic research into materials science for microelectronics, for example---certainly not at all 187 R1 universities. But something like that is a strategic asset for the US, to the point that there's a DARPA office specifically to fund that work (https://www.darpa.mil/about/offices/mto).

tptacek•4mo ago

Sure. It can be a meaningful story, I just often find myself wanting to see threads grounded in what the denominator is for the headline number.

Yoric•4mo ago

True.

What is meaningful, I suspect, is that this reverses the usual direction of brain drain. If this is not a fluke and that reversal gets consolidated, yeah, that's really bad for the US. Alongside the $100.000 H1B, there is a chance that this could durably shift Silicon Valley-style creativity outside of the US.

piaste•4mo ago

Austria has 9 million people. Scaled up in proportion to US population, that's the equivalent of ~940 academics. Still not huge, but a somewhat bigger drop.

FergusArgyll•4mo ago

https://www.univie.ac.at/aktuelles/detail/sechs-us-forscheri...

Has some names. Only had patience to check the first one. Visiting Assistant Professor of Global Premodern Art History at the Ohio State University. Happy for him, wish Austria the best of luck...

hatmatrix•4mo ago

Regardless of institution, there is a fierce debate of whether this is the right strategy after all - there are many excellent postdocs and scientists already in Europe waiting for faculty openings. Why not open these new positions to all candidates?

somenameforme•4mo ago

The article mentions paying them $587,000 each over 2 years. It also mentions at least some of the recruits were post-docs who average pay in the US is like $60k. If this is what brain drain is, where can I sign up?

zaptheimpaler•4mo ago

I think a grant includes money for all expenses - experiments, equipment, salary for all staff not just the post-doc etc.

araes•4mo ago

OAW Article on the Subject: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/news/harvard-princeton-mit-25-top-...

OAW Call for Nominations: https://stipendien.oeaw.ac.at/en/fellowships/apart-usa

OAW APART-USA Info: https://stipendien.oeaw.ac.at/en/fellowships/apart-usa/apart...

  > "The APART-USA fellowship is granted for a period of 48 months and must be commenced within six months of notification of the grant."
  > "The APART-USA fellowship amounts to a total of EUR 500,000. 25% of this funding (in total: EUR 125,000) comes from the nominating host research institution. 75% (EUR 375,000) comes from the Fonds Zukunft Österreich (FZÖ) of the National Foundation for Research, Technology and Development (NFTE)."
  > "funding can be extended by up to three months at no extra cost."
  > "The fellowship covers personnel costs as well as costs for relocation, travel, materials and other costs (such as mentoring, training, etc.)."

OAW = Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften = Austrian Academy of Sciences

kelipso•4mo ago

I don’t know if this includes starting research budget but if it does, it’s a very modest offer for top researchers. Starting research budget offered by R1 universities in the US can be millions of dollars for top researchers (in CS but that’s all I know about), before they need to get funding on their own. I guess it would be good for researchers who lost all of their funding.

mgh2•4mo ago

https://archive.is/rGDNX

jmclnx•4mo ago

I hope Austria Colleges who made out sends Trump a nice Thank Your Card and maybe a gift certificate to McDonalds :)

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Austria hails 'brain gain' in luring 25 academics away from US after cuts

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