This year’s Nobel prizes in medicine, physics and chemistry were handed out to eight scientists from five different countries: four to the U.S. and one each to Canada, France, Japan and the U.K. All told, 50 countries are represented among the 607 total laureates in these three fields since the prize’s inception in 1901.
While the U.S. still maintains the overall lead in Nobel prizes (with the exception of literature), the rate at which American scientists have been awarded the prize has declined since the late 1970s. This change reflects long-term shifts in the U.S.’s global share of both publications and total research and development funding compared to international investments in places like the European Union, China and Japan. Science is becoming increasingly international and collaborative. In less than two decades, the total annual number of publications worldwide with authors from multiple institutions has increased from 44.6 percent in 2000 to 64.7 percent in 2016. Further, publications with multiple international institutional authors rose from 13.2 percent to 21.7 percent over the same time period.
Scientific research has long proven to be a force for international cooperation, bridging divides between people of all nationalities, religions, races and ethnicities. This year’s Nobel prize in physics is a prime example of international partnerships — Donna Strickland, a then Canadian graduate student and now associate professor at the University of Waterloo, and Gerard Mourou, a French scientist now working at École Polytechnique in Palaiseau, France, shared the Nobel prize in physics for research performed at the University of Rochester in the mid-1980s. This type of multinational work — groundbreaking discoveries made by foreign national scientists at American institutions — has been central to the advancement of science and the health and well-being of citizens everywhere (Strickland and Mourou’s discovery is important to Lasik eye surgery, for example).
However, recent U.S. visa policy reforms and the anti-immigration rhetoric of senior administration officials in the White House and Congress have made American universities less attractive to foreign students and professors. Within its first two years, the Trump administration has placed severe restrictions for individuals from Muslim majority countries, an act that significantly affects the U.S. scientific and engineering workforce; imposed restrictions on visas for Chinese national students working in specific science and engineering Ph.D. programs; and proposed and implemented new guidance for H-1B visa holders and their family members — the primary visa for foreign-born postdoctoral academic researchers and gateway toward permanent residency and U.S. citizenship.
These restrictions will make international collaborations like Strickland and Mourou’s much more difficult. The U.S. higher education system is already witnessing a significant decrease in international applications in some science and engineering graduate programs, likely as a response to the aforementioned visa policy changes and the hard line taken by President Trump and visible members of Congress on immigration. These policies are in direct opposition to consensus opinions from the scientific community — for instance the Council of Competitiveness, an independent nonprofit organization created during by the Reagan administration to ensure America’s global economic competitiveness, states that “a green card should be stapled to the diplomas of immigrants earning advanced degrees from American universities.”
Scientific discovery and innovation rely on the free flow of ideas and thrive in environments that champion diversity of thought. As the Nobel prize continues to become more inclusive in its view of noteworthy scientists, albeit slowly, it is important to recognize the significance of multinational research efforts in the face of rising popular nationalism in the U.S. and abroad. If the U.S. continues its trend toward “America first” immigration and trade policies, devaluing federal scientific and technology research programs, and withdrawing from international agreements such as the Paris Agreement and Iran nuclear deal, it may continue to see itself fall behind in global rankings for scientific leadership.
For more information on the Nobel science awards, read our analysis of this year’s prizes in medicine, physics and chemistry.
Kenneth Evans, Ph.D., is a Baker Institute postdoctoral fellow in science and technology policy.
Kirstin R.W. Matthews is a Baker Institute fellow in science and technology policy who focuses on the ethical and policy issues at the intersection between traditional biomedical research and public policy.
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