Healey sounds alarm over foreign recruiting of Mass. scientists

Foreign governments are trying to lure US scientists to move abroad as the Trump administration roils the research world with funding cuts and blacklists of some fields.

Higher education leaders said scientists in Massachusetts are already receiving overtures, prompting Governor Maura Healey to raise the alarm about a potential brain drain from research institutions that form the backbone of the state’s economy.

Countries in the Middle East and Europe, as well as China, are telling Massachusetts scientists, “We’ll give you a lab, we’ll give you staff,” Healey said Monday at Boston Children’s Hospital.