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There is currently a ¡°golden opportunity¡± for Asian universities to attract top academics from the US, but they must act quickly and use government and industry links to stand out, the leaders of some of the continent¡¯s top institutions have said.

Speaking at the Times Higher Education Asia Universities Summit in Macao, Teck-Hua Ho, president of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), said his institution had formed a ¡°very high-level committee¡± to recruit international talent.

Each school has been asked to identify 20 ¡°superstar¡± candidates ¨C academics who have worked on ¡°breakthrough research in their life¡±.

¡°We look at the CV, we decide, we make [an] offer the next day. We don¡¯t wait,¡± Ho continued, saying the university has so far made around eight offers.

He added that the Singaporean government is helping to fund ¡°high¡± packages to attract international talent.

¡°There¡¯s¡­a golden opportunity for Asian universities to attract top talents from the United States,¡± he said.

It comes as international institutions launch schemes to recruit US researchers looking to leave the country in the wake of severe budget cuts and perceived threats to academic freedom under the Trump administration.

Bin Yang, vice-chancellor of Tsinghua University¡¯s university council, said competing with industry was a key challenge when it comes to attracting talent to Chinese universities, particularly in fields including AI and data science.

He said the university was in discussions with companies on the possibility of dual positions that would see appointees both work in industry and oversee PhD students.

In terms of scholars leaving the US, Yang said they can sometimes ¡°hesitate to go back to Beijing¡±.

He said he has seen cases where ¡°they want maybe to step into Hong Kong for a little while or maybe Singapore, then taste the water and those academic environments, ecosystems and learn lessons.

¡°Then, maybe next time, they could do more things in mainland China.¡±

Nancy Ip, president of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), said having a ¡°very competitive package¡± is ¡°extremely important¡± but added, ¡°We believe that it¡¯s beyond that, because, once you recruit them, you want them to excel.¡±

¡°You want to make sure that it is an ecosystem where excellent breakthroughs can thrive,¡± she said. ¡°For decades, we put a lot of emphasis on recruiting young faculty recruits and we provide them with an environment where they can excel,¡± including central research facilities.

Nanyang¡¯s Ho added that he believed the time was ripe for more Asian universities to win Nobel prizes and thought that recruiting fresh PhD holders as assistant professors could be a way to achieve this.

Although many boast laureates among their faculty, and countries such as China have proactively recruited Nobelists in recent years to boost their research capabilities, relatively few Asian institutions have received the accolade for research conducted at those universities.

¡°The big reason is because we only started doing research in the last 30 years, not 100 years ago,¡± Ho said. ¡°But the world has changed so rapidly now.

¡°Maybe if I¡¯m lucky, I keep betting on the young rising star¡­this research that they do at NTU will be a Nobel-winning piece 20 years from now,¡± he said. ¡°I actually think that Asian universities are perfectly positioned to do it now. We are ready.¡±

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com