The question is about how much permanent damage the administration will have done by 2029. They're obviously trying very hard to kill academia in this country, and the answer is not going to be zero, but I don't understand who else is going to put up the resources to really compete with us. There are midwestern state universities with research budgets that rival those of Cambridge and Oxford.

Here's another example: I regularly read quality publications in my field from researchers at the University of North Texas. In 2024, UNT ranked 170th in the country by R&D expenditure. Until I start seeing excellent work from other countries' 170th-ranked universities, I'm not worried about them poaching a few researchers from us now.

We don't appreciate how good the research ecosystem is in the U.S. The arsonists in power are trying to set fire to the house, and everyone will be poorer for it in the future, but we can still mitigate the damage.

TFH:

> Their hiring is paid for through a Canadian government investment of more than > 500 million Canadian dollars (about $364 million) in research fields that are > strategically important, from global warming to artificial intelligence.

Agree it's not clear from the article, but I'd expect that a lot of that is research funding, not necessarily salary. IOW, this is money that might have been spent on this anyhow, getting access to additional scholars is icing on the cake.