[araes]

If the sentiment upthread holds, and large numbers of US academics move overseas, then relatively shortly, Europe may shift towards being more willing to make big research bets.

The population shift introduces new ideas, new perspectives, new ways of operating research, new connections towards funding and money, new views on what big bets even means.

The influx of foreign scientists and academics into America over the last century caused significant shifts in how America operated and viewed the idea of research and academia. Post-war Europeans (Von Braun's crowd being an obvious example) caused a large shift in the way America funded "big bet" projects. Saturn V perhaps. Same may happen in Europe.

Those academics can use HN from the opposite side of the Atlantic. VC money especially has the possibility of being territorially bound, yet its often far less constrained by the those types of lines in the dirt than many funding opportunities.

[scarab92]

This theory presumes there is shortage of talented researchers in other countries, which is not the case.

There aren't countries with unfilled academic positions awaiting people from the US. If anything, the landscape is even more competitive outside the US.

[nradov]

The sentiments that you see online are meaningless. Ignore what people say and look at what they actually do. I guarantee you that very few US academics will move to Europe. The US has long had positive net migration from Europe, and some temporary changes to federal government funding policies won't significantly change that trend.