Europe is making an aggressive play for global scientific talent, and is actively aiming at US researchers.
Speaking at the Sorbonne University in Paris on Monday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled a $566 million funding package designed to turn Europe into a global hub for scientific research. French President Emmanuel Macron promoted the initiative on LinkedIn last month.
The move comes just weeks after the Trump administration froze or slashed billions of dollars in federal funding for US universities and research institutions, triggering hiring freezes, layoffs, and fears of a long-term brain drain.
Without naming the US or Trump, von der Leyen took direct aim at cuts to research budgets, calling the rollback of scientific support “a gigantic miscalculation.”
“Science holds the key to our future,” she said. “Because as threats rise across the world, Europe will not compromise on its principles. Europe must remain the home of academic and scientific freedom.”
The new “Choose Europe” initiative includes “super grants” for top-tier scientists through the European Council Research, longer contracts and expanded incentives for early-career scientists, and doubled relocation bonuses for researchers who choose the EU as their base.
“To every researcher, at home or abroad, to every young girl and boy who dreams of a life in science,” von der Leyen said, “our message is clear: Choose Science. Choose Europe.”
American researchers, scientists, and education policy experts told BI last week that Trump’s freezing of billions of federal dollars could trigger a brain drain, weakening the US position as a global science leader.
The National Institutes of Health, which was one of the organizations to have funding cut, has supported 174 Nobel Prize-winning scientists. Many fear that those kinds of breakthroughs are now at risk.
Shutting off funding so abruptly “absolutely endangers the United States’ position as the global leader in medical research,” said Peter Lurie, a researcher suing the Trump administration for cutting National Institutes of Health funding for various projects, including research on Alzheimer’s, reproductive health, cancer, and diabetes.
“And for that, we will pay,” Lurie told BI last week.
The Trump administration has already frozen $2.3 billion in federal funding to Harvard University, suspended dozens of federal research grants at Princeton University, and signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education.
Glenn Altschuler, a professor of American studies at Cornell University, told BI last week that the cuts’ long-term impact on US scientific innovation could be devastating.
“It’ll take a very long time to come back,” he said.
