Academics are turning down job offers from US universities?owing to concerns over the country¡¯s handling of the pandemic, draconian immigration policies and increasingly competitive academic climate.

Dan Warren, a biology researcher at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Germany, told?Times Higher Education?that he and his wife, who is also an academic, had been looking for permanent tenure-track jobs in the same city for 10 years.

But when he was finally offered a tenure-track position at a US university in July, which included the prospect of an equivalent role for his wife, he turned it down ¡°in part because we were worried about moving back to the country we were both born in¡±. Dr Warren¡¯s wife is based at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan.

¡°Moving to the USA felt like buying a house that is currently on fire,¡± he said, referencing the state of the pandemic in the country combined with its lack of a national healthcare system.

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Dr Warren, who is a US-Australian dual citizen, added that the academic climate in the country ¡°was a major source of concern for us and factored pretty heavily in our decision¡±.

¡°Getting a tenure-track job in the US¡­is starting to feel more and more like buying a lottery ticket for tenure,¡± he said. ¡°These days everything is so competitive. You must have world-class research, while teaching constantly and running a big lab. But even if you do all of that, your ability to get tenure is often contingent on your ability to get competitive funding in a country where the funding pool is just dwindling and dwindling.¡±

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Meanwhile, a European scholar based in Ireland who had accepted a job at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in May subsequently rejected the offer in July, saying that ¡°a move to the US is now and for the foreseeable future too risky for my family¡±.

¡°The way that the US Federal Government is handling the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, the troubled economy, the negative prospects for higher education and the continual changing rights of immigrants in the United States, are gravely concerning to us,¡± the academic, who wished to remain anonymous, said in an email to the institution.

He added: ¡°I am not turning down this job because I have found a more suitable job. Renouncing this job and our chance to move back to the US is also very risky, as my contract ends in December and I don¡¯t have anything else lined up. However, staying put and possibly moving into a non-academic job seems less risky, all things considered.¡±

A??including a screenshot of the email, shared by Ross Vander Vorste, assistant professor of biology at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, who had hired the scholar, received 23,500 likes and 8,100 retweets.

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Dr Vander Vorste, who said it was now uncertain whether he would be able to readvertise the position, suggested that ¡°one reason that tweet really blew up is because¡­their story really exposed something that people are concerned about¡±.

¡°I feel like the US used to be seen as a holy grail for academic jobs. Finding a tenure-track job in the US was very desirable for people outside the US. I think that¡¯s changing and that¡¯s scary to me and frustrating to me because, ultimately, I think that¡¯s going to hurt our higher education system in the long run,¡± he said.

ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com