The government of the USA has not only withdrawn from the WHO, but is now also putting pressure on researchers to avoid collaborating with co-authors abroad. | Photo: Caro / Bastian Keystone

According to an article in Science magazine in May 2026, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA have told certain researchers informally that they will no longer be allowed to publish together with co-authors affiliated to institutions in foreign countries without first obtaining express permission. Some researchers had to delete earlier collaborative articles from publication lists they had already submitted to the NIH.

In some cases, they have even been explicitly instructed to cease certain collaborations altogether. The US Department of Health and Human Services has claimed that this merely constitutes “a clarification of longstanding policy, not a new directive”. But many researchers have nevertheless responded negatively, for example, Britta Glennon, a professor of management, who told the magazine R&D World: “When US-based scientists suddenly lose a foreign collaborator because they’re not allowed to work with them anymore, there’s no way that it doesn’t impact their productivity”.

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