A new survey reveals that recent federal research policy disruptions are leading young scientists to question their future career path.gettyA recent survey of early-career biomedical researchers reveals that the Trump administration’s campaign to upend existing federal science policies is causing young scientists to doubt whether they will continue to work in academia or stay in the U.S.In their new National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper, entitled Before The Exodus? Young Scientists and The Future of US Science, Pierre Azoulay (MIT), Raffaella Sadun (Monash University) and Daniela Scur (Harvard University) examined the impact that a set of federal science policy changes introduced in 2025 have had on the career intentions of young researchers. Those changes have included the termination or freezing of billions in National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation grants, a reduction in the number of new grants being awarded by federal agencies, administration proposals to dramatically cut NIH and NSF funding in the future, the revocation of international student and scholar visas, and the targeting of several leading research universities by the administration for various allegations of discrimination and other claims.The SurveyThe researchers took advantage of a survey that was already being conducted in 2025 — when the above policy changes began — about management practices in biomedical labs. The Scientific Labs Management Project tapped a sample of 2,466 biomedical research laboratories located in U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals (45%), graduate schools (52%), and independent research institutes (3%). Most of these labs were receiving funding from NIH (55%), NSF (12%) or both agencies (16%). In March 2025, the researchers sent an online survey to the 13,240 doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows working in these labs, asking them the following three questions about their career intentions before and after the Trump administration’s research policies were being introduced. MORE FOR YOUHow likely are you to stay in academia? How likely are you to stay in the United States? How satisfied are you with having pursued a PhD in science? Each question was asked twice covering two time periods— for “now” and for “six months ago” – allowing the research team to assess within-person changes in attitudes.The ResultsThe researchers received completed responses from 916 scientists across 770 laboratories at 134 institutions, an 8.3% response rate that is not atypical of online academic surveys. Respondents appeared to be similar to non-respondents in the larger sample on most observable characteristics.Six months before the survey, 93% of respondents said they were likely or very likely to remain in the United States, but by March 2025, that figure had decreased to 72% – a drop of 21 percentage points. The share of scientists likely to stay in academia fell from 66% to 44%, a decline of 22 percentage points. Satisfaction with having pursued a PhD also dropped dramatically — while 92% of respondents reported being satisfied or neutral six months earlier, only 76% did so at the time of the survey – a 16 percentage point decline.In other words, a majority of young biomedical scientists came to harbor doubts about pursuing academic careers, and more than one in four young scientists who previously planned to pursue their career in the U.S. were later reconsidering that choice.The decreases in the likelihood of staying in academia and the level of PhD satisfaction were basically the same for foreign and U.S. scientists – roughly 22 and 16 percentage points respectively for both groups, but the decline in the desire to stay in the United States was about twice as large for foreign scientists (30.8 percentage points) as for domestic ones (15.8 percentage points). Nonetheless, even among U.S. scientists, one in six who previously had said they planned to stay in the United States now acknowledged a willingness to pursue their careers abroad.These results held up across different types of scientists and labs. The declines in positive sentiments were found whether the respondents were PhD students or postdoctoral researchers, whether they worked in small or large labs, and whether those labs enjoyed secure NIH grants or depended on more precarious funding. The ImplicationsThe scientific policies being pushed by the Trump administration appear to be causing young researchers to re-evaluate their scientific career prospects. Rather than building America’s scientific research capacity, "the current policy environment is generating substantial uncertainty and dissatisfaction among precisely the people the scientific enterprise needs to attract and retain." The scientific pipeline is at risk. “Young scientists are the canary in the coal mine of the American scientific enterprise.” the authors conclude, adding “they have the most career flexibility, the least sunk cost in the current system, and the longest time horizons over which policy changes will affect their lives." The survey documents a disturbing finding – the next generation of researchers ”is reconsidering its commitment to American science. What can be disrupted in a single year may take a generation to rebuild."