As Trump sacks scientists, let’s hire them. His drain is our brain gain

President Donald Trump, his powerful offsider Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are slashing public spending in an effort to save US taxpayers anywhere between $US500 billion ($793 billion) and $US2 trillion.

Caught up in these enormous cuts are scientists, researchers, medical experts, technologists and PhD scholars who are losing jobs, grants and scholarships at an unprecedented rate as funding streams are cancelled or put on hold.

Elon Musk, pictured with the Argentinian president, told the crowd at last month’s conservative political conference in the US, “this is the chainsaw for bureaucracy!”Credit: AP

To date, DOGE has allegedly made only $US105 billion of cuts. This means they have, at minimum, hundreds of billions to go. In the science and technology sector, these early cuts may be just the beginning.

Believe it or not, there is enormous opportunity for Australia in this unusual situation. If the government acts quickly, this is a once-in-a-century brain gain opportunity.

Australia should take a two-pronged approach. We should attract some of our best and brightest back home from places such as Silicon Valley while also offering fast-track visas to top US-based scientists and researchers who are newly out of a job or low on the funding they need to keep their start-up or scientific lab running.

Australia’s ability to keep up with rapid advances in scientific developments and critical technologies will determine the shape and size of our economy for decades to come. Most of our strategic partners – the US, Japan, the UK, the European Union and South Korea – are larger and have globally competitive tech sectors they’ve spent decades building. In recent years, these have included artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum and biotechnology.

As a mid-sized mining and tourism-dependent economy, Australia has long known we need to diversify our economy and increase our low national spend on research and development, which sits well below the OECD average. We also know we need greater self-sufficiency so we don’t continue to become overreliant on any one single market for access to technologies we have deemed “critical” to our future. Building greater sovereign capability in our science and technology sector is a more important goal than ever.

But we are struggling to keep pace with others. We haven’t spent decades investing in building up our tech sector or making big technological bets when we’ve had the opportunity. Things are now moving so quickly that we’re increasingly in danger of being completely left behind.

Coming from behind doesn’t mean we can’t catch up. It does mean, however, that we need to prioritise innovative and out-of-the-box thinking, and we must take more risks.

We should offer fast-track visas to top US-based scientists and researchers who are newly out of a job.Credit: Getty Images

In early 2025, we find ourselves in an unusual situation where our closest ally has, rather unexpectedly, flooded the global market with science and technology talent. The cuts are ongoing and broad, impacting everything from medical schools advancing cancer prevention to high-performance computing and the use of AI in national security work.

Other countries will respond to this opportunity quickly. As public funding into universities declines and US universities reduce PhD admissions, top Chinese universities are already proactively recruiting overseas students, allowing undergraduates to skip traditional pathways to fill up PhD programs in areas such as mathematics, engineering, computer science and environmental science.

Canada, seen as a global leader for attracting technology talent, is likely to be a key beneficiary of this talent flood. Its variety of visas, low processing times and proactive talent recruitment campaigns is one reason it recently saw 10,000 foreign tech workers in the US apply for permanent residence in Canada in one 48-hour period.

For decades, the US has provided funding and a home for many of our scientists, entrepreneurs and technologists. Now there’s a unique opportunity for us to reverse that brain drain while also increasing our investment in US talent and technologies. In doing so, we’d be contributing to greater burden-sharing in the US-Australia alliance (specifically AUKUS Pillar 2), noting that Australia has long benefited from – even piggybacked – on US scientific advancements and breakthroughs made in everything from health to renewable energies to defence technologies.

In order to identify the types of scientists, researchers and technologists that would be of greatest benefit to Australia and the potential visa options open to them, the Department of Home Affairs should work with our diplomats, defence, CSIRO, intelligence community and others to form a small, agile taskforce.

Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke should work with parliamentary colleagues and his department to quickly explore options to expand and fast-track visas. Visa options must be fast and flexible, or we’ll lose out to other countries vying for their expertise.

US ambassador Kevin Rudd and his team are well-placed to provide a picture of which top scientists have lost funding. They could work with others in government to promote Australia as a top destination for technology talent while also working collaboratively with the US government to explain how these investments would also benefit them.

The government can play a key knowledge broker role by helping to link up scientific labs and start-ups with grant opportunities, universities and venture capital firms open to investing in them. In exceptional cases, wealthy individuals should make an extraordinary contribution to Australia’s national interests by partnering with the government to attract outstanding scientists and their teams. This public-private investment may end up helping Australia through the next pandemic, provide us with a leading edge in AUKUS Pillar 2 technologies, or devise a cure for Alzheimer’s. It could unearth new methods for environmentally sustainable and cost-competitive extraction of critical minerals. All would provide shared benefit to our alliance with the US and close partnerships.

Knowing Musk’s cuts will continue, the winner of the Australian election should assess and expand this talent drive, particularly given the inevitable benefits to our job market and national prosperity.

In 2025, in the concerning global environment we find ourselves in, a “business as usual” approach won’t cut it. Australia must be ready to jump on rare opportunities as they arise, take more risks and make big bets. An enormous opportunity is here now. Soon it will be staring us in the face. It’s time for our parliamentarians to jump.

Danielle Cave is the head of executive, strategy and research at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

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