@Andrew_Akbashev: The 2025 Nobel Laureate leaves UC Berkeley for China. (Please read this post carefully) This follows announcements (pub…

The 2025 Nobel Laureate leaves UC Berkeley for China. (Please read this post carefully) This follows announcements (public & private) of other high-profile professors moving from top places like MIT, U. Chicago, Yale, to Asia. I moved countries myself and know a lot of professors who’ve done the same. There are many reasons why we do it. But… FUNDING is often the major reason for mid-to-late career scientists, from my observation. Academia in the United States is built on high competition. There’s almost no free money. You always have to prove your ideas are worth it. On average, it makes science better. But at the individual level, it drives people up the wall. Not everyone is wired for constant competition, rejections and seeing their dreams put on hold. In some European and Asian institutions, there is BASE FUNDING. You can use it for almost whatever you want. You can buy equipment. You can hire. You can travel. Whatever you wish. And it comes “for free”. No application required. It’s often annual and part of your employment package. It may be really big, or it may be small (e.g. for a couple of PhD students). For example - Max Planck Institutes are well known for it. The Director position at MPI (basically, a lab head) is a dream for many professors at regular universities. I know people from Harvard who immediately accepted such positions when they received offers. You have enormous resources at Max Planck compared to other places. So, when a professor sees an opportunity like that…. When you’re offered tens of millions of dollars that will let you focus on realizing your dreams and do big projects… It may be hard to resist. Very hard. Is it a loss for the country? In my view, research by one professor usually has limited impact by itself. But their REAL impact is the mentees and graduates who grow to become top experts in their domains, who will become professors, tech entrepreneurs, policy makers, and so on. And this becomes a real societal loss. What it all shows (in my experience): Without base funding, without concentrated non-competitive funding, the US will continue to lose talent, mentors and research leaders. The US needs base funding. Either mission-directed or in the Max Planck Institute (MPI) style. National labs often have less competitive funding. But it’s still far from MPI. And universities rarely give anything for free. Unless you get a counter-offer from a competitor, they won’t lift a finger to support you with internal resources. Integration of base funding into the US system is really tricky but long overdue. (It’s my opinion. Based on observations and private communications.)