20 December 2007

Scientists leaving U.S. in droves

Frustrated by stagnating federal funding for research and clampdowns on visas, Asian scientists are increasingly returning to their homelands.

The Union-Tribune (San Diego) reported one-quarter of the 700,000 students who left China between 1978 and 2003 have gone back, according to China’s Ministry of Education.

Most of those left the U.S. recently, with more than 20,000 a year returning to China in the past five years, according to the ministry.

In countries with blossoming economies, such as China, South Korea, India, and Singapore, governments have identified biotechnology and other high-tech industries as a way to expand beyond basic manufacturing.

The trend has negative implications in the U.S., which has already lost much of its high-tech manufacturing to outsourcing, said Greg Lucier, chief executive of Carlsbad-based biotechnology company Invitrogen.

If foreign scientists continue to leave, the U.S. also could lose its lead in innovation.

While talented scientists go for the plentiful funding available in Asia, unreliable financing in the U.S. is driving them away.

Funding for the National Institutes of Health, which employs thousands of research scientists and distributes grant money nationwide to finance 34% of all U.S. biomedical research, has become a year-to-year proposition debated by Congress.

Temporary visas for immigrants with special skills, known as H1B visas, are limited to 65,000 a year, plus 20,000 visas for immigrants who earn advanced academic degrees in the U.S. For the ninth year, the cap on applications for H1B visas was full on the first day they were available for fiscal year 2008.