Canada recruits US researchers amid strained bilateral relations
Quick Look
Canada is hiring dozens of researchers from US universities, including Harvard, with C$504 million in funding for climate and medicine research, as US federal grant freezes and political tensions drive academics north amid escalating trade tensions.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
US President Donald Trump's administration has criticized universities for left-wing ideology and diversity policies, frozen federal research grants, and failed to address alleged campus antisemitism, creating uncertainty for researchers.
Canada is hiring dozens of researchers away from US universities, including top research institutions such as Harvard as its relationship with its neighbour continues to sour.
More than three-fourths of the 64 professors who are moving to Canada from around the world will come from the US. Under a new government programme, they'll receive funding from a pool of C$504m ($362m; £268m) for research in fields such as climate change and medicine.
US President Donald Trump's administration has accused universities of being dominated by left-wing ideology and diversity policies, and of failing to tackle alleged campus antisemitism.
The BBC contacted the White House and US Department of Education.
The administration has also frozen federal research grants for many different institutions and groups that they have argued are wasteful, external. That uncertainty is helping lure researchers elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Canada is asserting itself more on the global stage while it pushes back against the US in their escalating trade war, which reached a major turning point over tariffs recently.
One climate researcher told the BBC he was relocating to Canada in part because his work in the US had become more difficult in recent years.
Seth Guikema, a climate resiliency researcher at the University of Michigan and one of the 48 US researchers relocating to Canada, said he decided to approach Canadian institutions last year in search of opportunities.
"The funding environment in the US for anything related to climate and resilience has become challenging," Guikema said. "I was looking for a good intellectual home where I could have practical impact."
Over the next eight years, Guikema said he would use C$8m to research tools for better preparing for natural hazards, like storms and wildfires, at the University of Western Ontario.
The University of Michigan, his former employer, declined to comment.
Canada's Industry Minister Melanie Joly said on Thursday the government was "very glad that these fantastic professors are coming".
Asked if the programme was poaching US talent and whether it could be viewed by the Trump administration as an escalation of the US-Canada trade war, she said on Thursday: "The US administration is taking its own decisions and we're taking ours."
What to Watch
AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
More US researchers will consider relocating to Canada if federal research funding uncertainties persist
Likely · Within months
Canada will expand its researcher recruitment program beyond the initial 64 professors
Possible · Within months
Open Questions
- How many researchers will ultimately relocate to Canada under this program?
- What specific criteria are used to select researchers for the Canadian funding program?
- Will the US administration respond to Canada's recruitment efforts as part of the trade war?
