To remain scientifically competitive, the U.S. must take a coordinated national approach
The United States should develop a government-wide strategy to recruit and retain talented students and scientists from around the world in critical fields, according to a panel convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
In a report released last week, a special committee on international-talent programs said the United States needs a coordinated national approach, or it risks ceding further ground in the global competition for research and innovation.
Unlike other countries, the U.S. does not have an overarching talent plan, and its existing policies, such as tight limits on skilled-worker visas, can work at cross-purposes.
By comparison, countries like Canada, Singapore, and South Korea make it easier for international students to stay after graduation and for highly educated immigrants to get work permits. The government of China has taken deliberate — and sometimes aggressive — steps to improve its scientific capacity at home and attract scientists and researchers from abroad. It has about 10 national programs to recruit overseas-trained academics to lead its laboratories and research programs as well as several hundred more at the provincial and municipal levels.
In part, the United States doesn’t have a national strategy because it hasn’t needed one, said Mark A. Barteau, a professor of chemistry at Texas A&M University and chair of the National Academies committee that compiled the report. “The U.S. has a talent program,” Barteau said. “It’s called graduate school.”
But it’s no longer realistic to assume that American higher education’s reputation alone will be a sufficient magnet. Among western countries, Britain and Germany now enroll about as many foreign students in science and engineering as the United States, while Canada and others are gaining ground.
The United States needs to import high-tech workers because it doesn’t produce enough of its own, the panel wrote: More than a third of STEM graduates working in American research are foreign-born.
In their report, Barteau and his committee colleagues — including experts in international education, science policy, and national security — acknowledge growing concern among public officials that countries like China are taking advantage of American colleges’ open research environment and say that a comprehensive strategy must guard against national-security vulnerabilities. Still, they echo other advisory panels in saying that such risks should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, holding up the now-shuttered China Initiative — a federal investigation into academic ties with China — as an example of what not to do.
Among its other recommendations, the committee urges Congress to reform immigration law, including authorizing additional green cards for applicants with expertise in critical fields, lifting some per-country visa caps, and making it easier for international STEM graduates to stay in the United States.
It also says the federal government should encourage international enrollment and strong overseas research partnerships, both with longstanding allies and with countries, such as those in the Global South, that are trying to build up their educational and scientific infrastructures. And colleges, scientific associations, and industry groups should work to educate policymakers on the economic and national-security value of foreign talent, the importance of open research, and existing research-security issues, the report says.
The report also calls for more vigorous efforts to create a larger pool of Americans with STEM expertise, including eliminating barriers that keep students from underrepresented groups from studying science, and advocates for the passage of legislation modeled on the National Defense Education Act, the 1958 law that invested in American education to meet national-security needs in science and technology.
