Scientific conferences are leaving the US amid border fears

Summary

Some conferences have been relocated in response to researchers’ concerns about visiting the United States.Credit: skynesher/GettySeveral academic and scientific conferences in the United States have been postponed, cancelled or moved elsewhere, as organizers respond to researchers’ growing fears over the country’s immigration crackdown.Organizers of these meetings say that tougher rules around visas and border control — alongside other policies introduced by US President Donald Trump’s administration — are discouraging international scholars from attending events on US soil. In response, they are moving the conferences to countries such as Canada, in a bid to boost attendance.‘Anxiety is palpable’: detention of researchers at US border spurs travel worriesThe trend, if it proves to be widespread, could have an effect on US scientists, as well as on cities or venues that regularly host conferences.“Conferences are an amazing barometer of international activity,” says Jessica Reinisch, a historian who studies international conferences at Birkbeck University of London. “It’s almost like an external measure of just how engaged in the international world practitioners of science are.”“What is happening now is a reverse moment,” she adds. “It’s a closing down of borders, closing of spaces … a moment of deglobalization.”Unpopular locationConferences help researchers to connect, share new discoveries and shape the priorities of their fields. But events such as the detention and deportation of international scholars are pushing some academic societies and institutes to rethink where they hold their meetings.One of those is the International Society for Research on Aggression (ISRA), which announced last month that it would relocate its 2026 meeting from New Jersey to St. Catharines, Canada, after a survey of its members suggested that many international researchers would not attend a US meeting.“It was clear to us that, if we held a meeting in the US, based on the feedback ...