How has recruiting changed for university science labs?

Over two-thirds (70%) of university-based scientists in a representative sample reported greater difficulty recruiting international graduate students or postdocs since January 2025, while almost half (45%) reported more difficulty recruiting U.S.-based graduate students or postdocs.

Survey question: "Since January 2025, how have each of the following changed for you professionally?"

The survey was conducted November 2025 through January 2026. A sample of 1,352 panel members were invited to participate, of whom 280 completed online questionnaires. These scientists were sampled at random from 131 R1 universities. All findings weighted by gender, academic rank and academic field and have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.9 percentage points.
Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-NDSource: SciOPSGet the dataDownload imageCreated with Datawrapper