As Trump threatens funding, scholarship areas, Europe looks to reel in US researchers | World News

French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are hosting a high-profile conference at Paris’s Sorbonne University aimed at luring US-based academics and researchers alarmed growing political interference in American higher education.The event, Choose Europe for Science, comes amid fears of deep US government funding cuts to universities and research programs, and intensifying political attacks on institutions over diversity policies and pro-Palestinian activism.
Thirteen European countries, including France, Germany, and Spain, have called on the European Commission to act quickly to attract threatened academic talent.
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“Nobody could imagine a few years ago that one of the great democracies of the world would eliminate research programs on the pretext that the word ‘diversity’ appeared in its program,” Macron said, according to a translation provided a French official.
Speaking before Macron, von der Leyen proposed a EUR 500 million package to be spent over the next two years “to make Europe a magnet for researchers” and to support those who choose to relocate. “Europe must remain the home of academic and scientific freedom,” she said. “We must do everything we can to uphold it, now more than ever before.” While she avoided naming the United States, von der Leyen referred to a world where “fundamental, free and open research is questioned.”
The Trump adminration has taken a combative stance toward US universities, seeking drastic cuts to federal research funding and cracking down on scholarship areas such as vaccination and climate change. On May 2, the White House issued a preliminary request to slash USD 4.7 billion – more than half – of one agency’s USD 9 billion budget. That followed two waves of grant cancellations in April and similar cuts across other public agencies.
Visa revocations for foreign students and researchers have added to the pressure. Pro-Palestinian international students have been arrested and held in detention centers, often without due process. Universities, meanwhile, face pressure to discipline faculty critical of the Gaza war.Story continues below this ad
The intensifying standoff has unsettled many researchers. On April 14, Harvard University rejected a series of demands from the Trump adminration; within hours, the Department of Education froze nearly USD 2.3 billion in federal funding for the school.
Earlier this year, the adminration froze USD 400 million in funding to Columbia University, which was at the centre of protests against the war in Gaza. Several universities have also received “stop work” orders – directives to suspend federally funded research projects. According to Cornell University President Michael I. Kotlikoff, the school received over 75 such orders from the U.S. Department of Defense as of April 8.
Top scientific agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminration, the National Science Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health, have also seen staff dismissed.
Alarm within the academic community is growing. In March, more than 1,900 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine signed an open letter warning of the “danger” posed the Trump adminration’s attacks on science.Story continues below this ad
Macron warned that the U.S. model, which relies “so heavily on science (and) on innovation,” is under threat. “Without free scientific inquiry, we lose… pillars of our societies which are the very heart of western liberal democracies, first and foremost of which is our relationship with the truth.”
He pledged an additional EUR 100 million the end of the decade to support efforts to attract researchers to France, though neither he nor von der Leyen specified how the funds would be used.The Sorbonne gathering is the latest in a series of European efforts to attract U.S. academic talent. In April, Macron publicly invited American university staff to “choose France,” and announced a funding program to support the relocation of foreign scients.
Other countries are moving quickly. The UK is preparing to launch a GBP 50 million program to attract global research talent, according to The Financial Times. In Germany, coalition negotiations between conservatives and Social Democrats include plans to bring in as many as 1,000 researchers.
The European Research Council, which funds scientific research across the EU, told Reuters it would double its relocation grant to EUR 2 million (USD 2.16 million) per applicant.Story continues below this ad
Despite decades of effort, Europe has long struggled to rival the U.S. in research and innovation due to regulatory hurdles, lower funding, and weaker connections between universities and the private sector. France, while home to top scientific institutions, has seen many graduates depart for the U.S., leaving the continent lagging in fields like AI and cloud computing.
According to Eurostat, combined spending EU businesses, governments, and universities on research and development totalled USD 411 billion in 2023. In comparison, U.S. spending reached an estimated USD 940 billion, according to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statics.
Harvard alone, with an endowment of USD 53.2 billion, dwarfs Oxford’s USD 10.74 billion, the highest in the UK and Europe.
“I don’t foresee a rapid build-up of additional scientific capability that could match what the US now has … for several decades,” said Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University to Reuters.Story continues below this ad
Still, European leaders view this moment as a rare opportunity. Aix-Marseille’s Safe Place for Science program is already interviewing around 300 candidates. Other universities across the continent have launched similar initiatives.
“We have to make it easier and more attractive to come to Europe,” von der Leyen said, urging faster visa processing for scients and researchers. “We are choosing to be the continent where universities are pillars of our societies and our way of life, where global talent is welcomed.”