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The Francis Crick Institute, Britain’s flagship biomedical laboratory, is trying to mobilise scarce resources to recruit scientists who have been put off working in the US by President Donald Trump’s crackdown on research funding and academic freedom.
“We expect to be overrun with applications from America,” said Lord John Browne, chair of the London-based institute, as it aims to bring in four scientists to fill new “group leader” positions.
The challenge is how to fund the new positions that, without extra resources, the Crick cannot pay for the new positions at a time when it is under stringent financial pressure following years of below-inflation budget increases, said Sir Paul Nurse, chief executive. “We’ve had to freeze recruitment for the last two years.”
“The Crick is very keen to recruit scientists from around the world including the US,” he said. “The focus will be on early career talent, attracting group leaders who will be taking up their first independent positions.” They would head small research teams of around six people, each costing in total at least £500,000 a year.
The initiative would not only target scientists working in the US, Nurse said. “We think there are particularly strong opportunities to recruit people in continental Europe who would otherwise have gone to the US.”
The Trump administration has slashed research funding across the board, with particularly harsh cuts to fields from climate change to women’s health that do not fit its political agenda. At the same time it has imposed more stringent restrictions on universities’ freedom to recruit foreign students.
Nurse said the institute was discussing with its three main funders — Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and the government’s Medical Research Council — “how to generate support for the initiative”.
Alicia Greated, executive director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), an independent body promoting research, said the Crick’s struggle to launch its initiative exemplified the UK’s problem in attracting international scientific talent.
“The UK has an enormous opportunity now but we need a coherent approach from government — with the system and structures to support it,” she said. “Universities and research institutes are under great financial strain. The public spending review on Wednesday needs to include support for the UK research sector so that it can attract international scientists.”
The government said on Sunday that the spending review would allocate £86bn to research and development over four years, without giving details of its distribution. The 2025-26 figure of £20.4bn would rise to £22.5bn by 2029-30.
“The spending plans announced today would appear to be broadly flat in real terms,” Greated commented. “While not the ambitious settlement we called for, in these difficult fiscal circumstances it is positive that the R&D budget has been protected.”
Greated said the rollout of UK global talent schemes this year had been piecemeal and limited in scope. The Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, last month announced a wide-ranging £30mn initiative and the Royal Academy of Engineering said it would open a new “accelerated international route” for applicants to its existing Green Future Fellowship programme. The government is expected soon to announce an initiative worth around £50mn to fund research grants and relocation.
Some European countries have been more active, led by the EU with its €500mn Choose Europe for Science programme. This includes new funding for researchers to set up labs in Europe, with seven-year “super grants” and legal guarantees to protect “academic freedom and safeguard scientific inquiry”.
France has launched a €100mn Choose France for Science scheme, supplemented by initiatives from several individual French universities. Spain has added €40mn to its programme to bring in researchers from abroad, while the Catalan regional government will spend €30mn on a new Catalonia Talent Bridge offering 70 positions to researchers.
The UK government said on Saturday: “We are working to ensure the UK is the destination of choice for international top talent, so that people who have the right skills and experience to supercharge UK growth in strategic industries continue to be attracted here. We will set out more detail in due course.”
