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“No one could imagine a few years ago that one of the great democracies of the world would eliminate research programs under the pretext that the word ‘diversity’ appeared in his program,” President Emmanuel Macron de France said Monday.
I was talking at the University of Sorbonne in Paris during an event called Choose Europe for Science, organized by the French government and the European Union.
It was unthinkable, Macron said, also referring to the withdrawal of the visas of the researchers in the United States, that a nation whose “economy depends so heavy on free science” would make such an error. “
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, announced an investment of $ 566 million in the conference to “make Europe a magnet for investigators” in the next two years. The money, he said, will support “the best and the most brilliant” around the world.
Like Mr. Macron, Mrs. von der Leyen did not mention the United States by name, but described a global environment where “fundamental and open research is questioned.”
“What a gigantic calculation error!” She said.
In Europe, there is a broad feeling that Trump has abandoned the traditional support of the United States to freedom, freedom of expression and democracy through his hug to autocrats and the assault on the academy. That has created strains, but also a sense of opportunity in Europe, where attracting the best scientific minds to vigorous and independent universities is considered part of a broader campaign to “rearm” to Europe as an independent power.
In the long term, the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, plans to double subsidies for investigators who move to Europe and enshrined the freedom of scientific research in a law called the Law of the European Research Area.
“The first priority is to ensure that science in Europe remains open and free. That is our presentation card,” said Mrs. von der Leyen. “As threats increase throughout the world, Europe will not compromise with its principles. Europe must continue to be free academic and scientific values.”
The Trump administration attack on science and threats to universities was the main momentum for the conference, attended by government ministers and prominent researchers in Europe. More and more, the United States is seen as a strategic adversary, with the opening of doors to American researchers and scientists seen as an effective long -term response to that challenge.
Mr. Macron’s message to scientists, particularly women, he said, was this: “If you love freedom, come and help us remain free.”
He announced that his government would devote $ 113 million to the welcome to foreign researchers, promising that they would not replace European scientists.
The alarms in Europe sounded when the Trump administration reduced Frozer’s jobs and subsidies in the main US institutions as part of cost reduction measures. European dismay increased as the United States government attacked diversity programs and tried to dictate to universities “to those who can admit and hire, and that the areas of study and research can carry out”, in the words of Harvard’s president, Alan M. Garber.
