Einstein, Edison, Oppenheimer, Maria Goeppert Mayer, Alexander Graham Bell, Wu Jianxiong. 

Luminaries who made profound contributions to science and society and who all had one thing in common: They took their brilliant minds to the United States.

But the current U.S. administration's hostile approach to universities, immigrants, and deep funding cuts are taking their toll on academic and research talent choosing and staying in the United States.

CGTN met with Turkish academic Zeynep Ersoy, a post-doctoral researcher at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, Spain, part of the AQUA Research Group.

She's an expert in fresh water life, lakes and rivers, focused on the crucial work of keeping our fresh water clean for the future under the specters of pollution, habitat destruction, invasive species and climate change.

She once dreamed of studying in the U.S. too, but would she move there now?

"No, I guess I wouldn't," she says.

"All the things with the budget cuts and in the research and also these problems with the diversity and inclusivity issues there. So I would be hesitant to go because I'm also not from there – I would also be an immigrant."

75% of U.S.-based scientists considering leaving

Ersoy isn't alone in rethinking her plans. A March study by the journal Nature showed that three-quarters of scientists surveyed in the U.S. said they were considering leaving the country to work elsewhere.

The European Union is banking on a brain gain, pledging over half a billion dollars over the next three years "to make Europe a magnet for researchers."

Applications by U.S. scientists to jobs in Europe have seen a 32 percent surge in a year, and the next big idea or great discovery – that might have happened in Stanford, Boston, or New Haven – could potentially instead take place in the laboratories of Europe.

And it isn't just Europe, academic standards are rising around the world - China, for example, is quickly catching up to the U.S. on R&D spending.

In Ireland, Ron Davies is a Professor of Economics at University College Dublin. He was born in the United States but has lived in Ireland for over 20 years and sees great changes happening in the academic world.

"It used to be if you wanted to be a real academic, you had to do your PhD in the U.S.," he begins. "That's not the way it is now. Lots of great places to study outside.

"Knowledge builds on knowledge, so the ability to attract top academics who then train top students and run top labs, they're going to generate the next round of innovations. That's what always drives growth, it's not finding new resources, it's new innovation."

Davies can see the step change having huge, lasting effects. 

"What makes the U.S. such a great place at the moment? It's the innovations, the free thinking, it's the way in which creativity is rewarded. But when the U.S. does these things to cut itself off academically, a few years down the line, that's going to cut itself off economically.

"And if you drive people away, creative people tend to have certain philosophies and worldviews, they don't really like what's happening in the U.S. – this is going to hurt now, but it will be something that will be felt for decades down the line."

China the biggest winner? 

"I think probably the country that's gonna benefit the most from this is China," Davies continues.

"I believe that the U.S. immigration will go after Chinese students before they go after the Irish kids, for example. That's gonna lead to a pull-back of Chinese-born academics, which will incentivize them to study in China as opposed to the U.S., and the U.S. will simply lose out on this."

The signs are that it's already happening. Reports are on the rise of Chinese students reaching the U.S. with their papers in order, yet being detained, questioned, and deported. It's prompted the Chinese Embassy to release this statement:

"The U.S. side has frequently carried out discriminatory, politically driven and selective law enforcement against Chinese students and scholars, inflicting physical and mental harm, financial losses, and disruptions to their careers."

And it isn't new either. During current U.S. President Donald Trump's first term in 2018, the justice department launched the "China Initiative," under which more than a hundred U.S. professors were investigated for allegedly 'stealing sensitive technologies.' Most charges brought were dropped and after that the number of Chinese scholars returning to the U.S. doubled.

One specific example shows what the U.S. could lose - the story of Qian Xuesen, a Chinese rocket scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project that helped the U.S. develop the nuclear bomb. 

He was accused of espionage in 1955 and sent back to China, where he subsequently helped China achieve numerous technological breakthroughs.

In more recent times came Zhu Song-Chun, another Harvard graduate who spent his entire academic life in the U.S. – helping drive crucial advances in Artificial Intelligence, his work helped bring the big breakthroughs we now see in programs like Chat GPT.

In 2020, amid a wave of Sinophobic sentiment during Covid he moved back to China and is now the head of the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BigAI) in Beijing, a research facility receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in funding which is driving innovation in the race to General Artificial Intelligence.

The United States has celebrated more than 400 Nobel prizes since the inception of the awards in 1901, far more than any other nation – but over a third of the U.S. winners were or are immigrants.

The U.S.' loss looks set to be the rest of the world's gain, particularly Europe and China. Just ask Zeynep Ersoy: Does she have any regrets now of not studying in north America?

"No, I prefer being here in Spain," she says. "I think there are many universities and lots of good researchers with international networks and high quality research in my field, for example, in aquatic ecology.

"I have colleagues looking for opportunities in Europe, asking around about grants that they can apply for to come back to Europe, the quality of the research is amazing for the money available."

Current trends and the policies accelerating them may be putting the USA's domination of the world's innovation at risk.