GoKawiilNature advice column addresses international scholars facing national grant bias in hiring
A Nature reader column features an anonymous academic with over two decades of engineering research experience in Latin America, who reports repeated rejection from faculty positions in North America and Europe. A colleague who served on a hiring committee told the applicant that the deciding factor was the lack of principal-investigator grants from the destination country's national funding system, despite strong scientific credentials. Experts including ecologist César Marín and MetaDocencia co-director Laura Ación respond, confirming that national funding experience often functions as an unofficial hiring criterion.