Citing a letter from 13 member countries urging Brussels to design a strategy to catch American researchers, Zahariva said that the Commission was working on a special visa for the best talents, as well as a system to help governments and universities of the Bloc swimming pool resources to attract American researchers. A meeting will also be held to coordinate these actions with the EU countries.
“Europe has a historic responsibility for defending academic freedom,” added the commissioner, referring to the persecution of researchers under Nazi and fascist regimes on the continent in the 1930s and 1940s. “Without freedom, knowledge cannot really develop.”
Open doors, open laboratories
Some universities quickly discovered the opportunity, launching targeted recruitment programs for American talents.
Last month, Aix Marseille University (AMU) of Provence made the headlines on both sides of the Atlantic by unveiling the Safe Space for Science program, an initiative of $ 16 million to recruit up to 15 American scientists whose research is “threatened or hampered” by the new administration.
The president of the AMU, Eric Berton, told Politico that the program – which was “born from the indignation in what happens to our American colleagues” – had been flooded with requests for nearly 150 researchers from major universities, in particular Yale, Colombia and Stanford, as well as the American government agency such as the National Institutes of Health, the Ocean and the atmospheric administration.
Most candidates are looking for subjects such as climate change, immunology and infectious diseases, or the social sciences involving gender, diversity and migration – of the Trump administration war against science and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Berton added that even historians had applied for the program.
Politices
