Canada poaches 48 top US-based academics

{"text":[[{"start":8.32,"text":"Canada has poached 48 US-based senior academics to join its top universities, in a sign of an exodus from elite higher education institutions that have come under attack by President Donald Trump’s administration."}],[{"start":20.54,"text":"The academics, part of a group of 64 from around the world who were recruited through Canada’s C$1.7bn Global Impact+ Research Talent Initiative, include a number working in fields where funding has been slashed by the Trump administration, such as sustainability, climate and the environment."}],[{"start":38.88,"text":"“When people ask how Canada is responding to a changing world, point them to this moment,” industry minister Mélanie Joly said in a statement to the FT on Thursday. “Point them to the researchers who have chosen Canada.”"}],[{"start":51,"text":"The high-profile academic appointments come as relations between Canada and the US have hit a new low after collapsed trade talks last week sparked costly tit-for-tat tariff retaliation between the neighbours."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":63.12,"text":"Professors from Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Berkeley are among those who have been lured under the programme unveiled by Mark Carney’s government at the end of last year, which spurred a round of negotiations to recruit academics from around the world."}],[{"start":76.72,"text":"Robert Asselin, the chief executive of U15, an association of Canada’s leading research universities, said the recruitment drive “is a big deal”."}],[{"start":85.32,"text":"“We’re talking about the best scholars in the world . . . choosing to come here to do their research. It speaks to the attractiveness of our leading research universities.”"}],[{"start":94.32,"text":"The group includes a handful of academics based in the UK and China, and several from other countries including France, Germany, India and Australia, but the vast majority are currently working in the US. Among them are several returning Canadian citizens and others who are Chinese or hold dual nationality."}],[{"start":111.6,"text":"They include MIT astronomer Sara Seager, Phillip Zamore, a specialist in RNA biology at the University of Massachusetts, and Brian Kuhlman at UNC Chapel Hill, a pioneer of computational protein design."}],[{"start":125.127,"text":"The US has clamped down on higher education during Trump’s second term, with efforts to cut funding, impose greater political oversight over grants and governance, and restrict international student visas."}],[{"start":136.16,"text":"“Canada’s willingness to support research that challenges commercial and political threats to democracy is deeply necessary at a moment where authoritarianism is on the rise around the globe,” said Ethan Zuckerman, who is leaving the University of Massachusetts to become Eddie Goldenberg Research Chair in the Digital Public Sphere at McGill University in Montreal."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":156.8,"text":"The exodus follows the departure of a handful of other high-profile academics from the US in recent months, including Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley, who quit Yale for the University of Toronto. The MIT Nobel Prize-winning economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee are moving to the University of Zurich."}],[{"start":176.16,"text":"Several European countries have announced additional funding to attract academics who want to leave the US, but none on the scale or with the success of Canada’s initiative."}],[{"start":185.68,"text":"Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, said: “If the US continues to become less attractive to scholars, we risk losing not only individual researchers but the ideas, discoveries and innovations that depend on their work.”"}],[{"start":201.32,"text":"Alan Bernstein, professor emeritus in molecular genetics at the University of Toronto, said: “Today’s announcement is great. It sends a clear signal to researchers from the US and indeed anywhere that Canada values science and is committed to building a strong research enterprise.”"}],[{"start":218.2,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1787896893_5201.mp3"}