University researchers explore career options after Trump administration science policy changes

In the face of new challenges doing science on campus since the start of the second Trump administration in January 2025, many scientists have considered changing jobs.

Survey question: "Since January 2025, have you explored any of the following career options?"

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