The couple was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics along with Michael Kremer of Harvard University for groundbreaking antipoverty research, MIT said at the time.
“While they will be taking up new positions in Zurich, Profs. Banerjee and Duflo will continue in important roles at MIT — with the Jameel Poverty Action Lab, our Economics department, and MIT Open Learning,” MIT said in a statement Tuesday.
The couple founded the poverty lab, known by its acronym J-PAL, at MIT’s Department of Economics in 2003, college officials said.
“With their ongoing leadership, J-PAL — a network of more than 1,200 researchers and 600 dedicated, full-time staff in more than a dozen countries worldwide — will continue to innovate for years to come,” MIT said.
In a story last week on the couple’s planned move, the French daily Le Monde noted that Duflo in March co-signed an op-ed in the newspaper denouncing attacks on US scientific research.
“Ideological censorship is spreading, removing essential scientific information on social inequalities, health and the protection of natural environments,” an English translation of the opinion piece read. “Added to this are restrictions on the teaching of evolution and gender studies, coupled with attacks on the integrity of scientific agencies. Finally, layoffs of young scientists and bans on international collaborations are stepping up, worsening this alarming picture.”
The op-ed warned that what “is happening today in the US could very well foreshadow what awaits us if we don’t react in time.”
“It is therefore urgent to reaffirm the fundamental role of science as a driver of emancipation and social progress, and to strengthen scientific culture within society,” it read. “Europe can pull itself together and overcome its scientific, technological, and economic decline, provided it chooses to invest in knowledge, research, and innovation.”
Duflo referred questions to MIT’s media relations through an assistant. Banerjee didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Their planned move comes as MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, last week rejected a Trump administration list of demands for reshaping the university’s operations to continue receiving government funds for research.
In a letter Friday to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Kornbluth said the school’s practices already “meet or exceed” the administration’s requested provisions for merit-based admissions and financial aid, and that the university disagrees with other demands that restrict academic freedom and institutional independence.
“We freely choose these values because they’re right, and we live by them because they support our mission — work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States,“ Kornbluth wrote. “And of course, MIT abides by the law.”
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report, and Jeremiah Manion of the Globe Staff contributed.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.