Uncertainty over science funding has led top researchers to accept C$20m awards from the Canadian government in what may be first sign of a brain drain

Britain is to lose several of its foremost scientists next year following a recruitment drive to attract top brains to Canada.

The four researchers will leave their posts at UK universities for better-funded positions in institutions across the country.

The British researchers won four C$20m (£13m) awards created by the Canadian government, the most by any country outside the US, which is to lose nine scientists to the scheme. The C$20m is awarded over seven years and comprises C$10m from the scheme and $C10m from the university.

Adrian Owen, who helped set up the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre at Cambridge University and has risen to become one of neuroscience's brightest stars, will move to the University of Western Ontario, along with five of his research staff.

Howard Wheater, director of the Environment Forum at Imperial College London, will take up a chair in water security at Saskatchewan University; Graham Pearson from Durham University will move to the University of Alberta for a chair in Arctic resources; and Patrik Rorsman is leaving Oxford for a research chair in diabetes at the University of Alberta.

The moves come after several senior scientists in Britain warned that a brain drain was imminent as the new government prepares to make swingeing cuts in public spending that are likely to have a heavy impact on research funding.

"This comes with some sadness, but it's an amazing opportunity for me," Dr Owen said, who has worked at Cambridge since 1996.

"UK science is going through a period of uncertainty, and many of my more senior colleagues said this might not be a bad time to be leaving," Dr Owen said. "There's nobody in the UK putting down C$20m saying 'we think what you're doing is really cool, come and do it here.'"

In 2006, Dr Owen's group became the first in the world to communicate with patients in a persistent vegetative state, research that raised profound ethical questions over the ongoing medical care of such patients.

Dr Owen has been awarded Canadian C$20m over seven years to move his research team and set up a world-leading programme to focus on acute brain injury. Some of his work will look at developing brain-machine interfaces that allow brain-injured patients to communicate.

Canada has created a substantial fund to attract foreign scientists to the country. Dr Owen will take one of 20 Canada Excellence Research Chairs that have been set up to entice top-ranking researchers. He is due to start his new job in January next year.

The university has also hired Dr Owen's wife, Jessica Grahn, a neuroscientist who studies the ties between music and the brain. Dr Grahn, who is interested in how musical rhythm is processed in the brain and how this differs from the processing of other types of temporal sequences, has accepted a job in the university's psychology department.

• This article was amended on 18 May 2010 to make clear that all sums are in Canadian dollars, and to give a breakdown of where the money comes from.