European academics shun US business conference over Trump fears

Many European academics are opting out of one of the largest annual gatherings for business scholars because it is being held in the US, citing concerns over data privacy, their opposition to travel bans and the political climate under the Trump administration.

The US-based Academy of Management (AOM) meeting is set to take place on 31 July in Philadelphia this year.

The gathering typically draws up to 14,000 participants from around the world, but early registration figures suggest that this year’s event will be attended by only about half the usual figure, according to the Financial Times.

Following the growing backlash, the AOM announced its decision to move next year’s meeting from Seattle to Vienna. Subsequent conferences are also set to be held outside the US: Toronto in 2028, Frankfurt in 2029 and London in 2030 – the latest of several conferences to bypass the US.

André Reichel, a professor at the International School of Management in Germany, said he had attended the event every year since 2009. “The AOM is, or was, my home,” he said.

But this year, the “adversarial” atmosphere in the US had deterred him. “Foreign-born scholars in the US have been detained or deported (or threatened with deportation); visiting scholars are scanned for their social media activities; and the attitude towards any scientific endeavour connected to fields I care about (mostly sustainability, climate, energy transformation) can only be described as hostile,” he said.

“I don’t feel welcome in the US, and I cannot imagine how it must feel for colleagues from the Middle East or Africa.”

A British-Iranian academic, who wished to remain anonymous, said the travel restrictions and political uncertainty had made the trip untenable for him. He wanted to express solidarity with those prevented from attending because they were from a country subjected to the US’ travel bans.

“It’s unacceptable that certain people can’t go to such conferences, the most important in the field, when they’ve done nothing wrong, other than being born in a country that the US considers problematic,” he said.

He also pointed to a US government proposal to screen the five-year social media history of visitors from dozens of countries, including the UK. “Officers would be able to check [researchers’] social media and if they find something expressed against the [US government], they will be stopped from entering,” he said. Many of his colleagues had decided not to attend because of this, he added.

The scholar stressed that not being able to attend meant that researchers missed out on opportunities the conference offers. The AOM publishes prestigious journals and editors attend the event, giving researchers an opportunity to pitch ideas and get feedback.

While he commended the AOM for switching next year’s location to Vienna, he expressed disappointment that action had not come sooner, even as he acknowledged the practical difficulties of relocating a conference.

For Timo Lorenz, a professor in work and organisational psychology at the MSB Medical School Berlin, the concerns were both professional and personal.

“I am a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) researcher, and people in my team are as well. We don’t think we would be welcome under current [American] politics,” he said. “We don’t want to give our social media data, personal data, phone contacts and emails to the current regime to enter the country.”

He also pointed to broader political concerns over detentions by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Trump administration’s approach to science policy and tensions with Europe over trade, Ukraine and Greenland.

Lorenz wrote an open letter to the AOM detailing his concerns. He described the academy’s decision to relocate its subsequent meetings outside the US as a “meaningful step”.

Data privacy was among the deciding factors for Sascha Kraus, a professor of management at Germany’s University of Siegen who regularly attends AOM conferences. “It was not one single factor, but a mix of travel practicalities, digital privacy and data protection concerns from a European perspective, and the rising costs of attending major conferences in the US.”

A recent push by European countries and the European Union to attract US academics and those who would typically opt for the US has led to a debate over whether the continent could emerge as a viable, long-term alternative base for academics.

“Academic meetings are more problematic than usual in the US at present,” said Simon Marginson, an emeritus professor at the University of Oxford and a professor of higher education at the University of Bristol.

Marginson pointed to data from OpenAlex showing that Europe generates twice as many scientific papers as North America. “Europe is already functioning as an alternate global centre to the US,” he said. “But it is too early to tell whether it’s a blip and the normal openness and global centrality of the US will resume, or this relocation trend heralds a longer-term shift.”

seher.asaf@timeshighereducation.com