[amoshebb]

I could only find 4 names:

1 full prof at Vanderbilt with a real research program who has been listed as PI on a bunch of grants. "Top researcher" may be generous, but based on nothing I'd say reasonable description.

The other 3: 1 is a VU Amsterdam PhD who was on a Netherlands Government funded 24-month postdoc in Harvard who's been at VU Amsterdam since 2017. 1 is an adjunct (on leave) prof from Israel who has worked at a few german universities, most recently an Munster (doesn't qualify for the 30% rule). The last resigned over a year ago and has been contracting at a couple UK universities.

This seems less like "Top researchers leave USA" and more like "Typical Academic Bag Chasing"

[Freak_NL]

> I could only find 4 names:

They haven't published the full list of the 34 researchers accepted so far:

> Namen van de 34 bursalen maakt NWO niet bekend, aldus een woordvoerder, omdat de aanstellingsprocedures nog lopen en sommige onderzoekers geen publiciteit willen.

(NRC July 7th, https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/07/07/tulp-fonds-voor-academi...)

So you'll only find the names of those who are now in a position to speak out about this issue.

[searine]

Its not just what makes the news. There is a cooling effect happening in recruiting international talent.

Science is heavily international, and if people feel like they won't get funding/wont be safe here, they won't come.

[Shocka1]

I know this is anecdotal, but my engineering graduate program at a well known private university in the NE had roughly 300 graduates, more than half of them on student visas. I feel it's more popular than ever to act as though one has ideals, but there is an endless supply of talent waiting for a spot at these prestigious American universities.

[voxl]

Researchers _would_ leave in droves if they could. But it turns out the entire world doesn't actually care much for research. The US was actually unique in that regard.

[hashstring]

That’s not true and uninformed. What even makes you believe this?

Europe has tons of top research universities. Both EU and China are competing with the US [0].

And this news is not an isolated event. The majority of Americans rank US higher education research and innovation as: poor [1]. US top universities are shrinking PhD programs [2.

The thing that makes the US unique is that they are really dropping the ball in a lot of areas, because of bad leadership of the financial and political “elite”.

[0] https://sciencebusiness.net/news/universities/how-eu-researc... [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/15/growing-s... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/us/research-universities-...